A ten-year-old boy surfing off the coast of Australia had a dangerously close encounter with a great white shark without even knowing it.
Chris Hasson told the New York Post that he was taking photos of his son, Eden, while he was riding waves off Samurai Beach at Port Stephens, 110 miles north of Sydney. After taking the particular shot below, he looked more closely and discovered a shark just below the wave’s surface, looking directly up at his son.
Cree-pee.
Hasson told reporters that he “quickly” called his son in and whistled the second he saw the photo.
“He (Eden) saw a shape in the wave and thought it was seaweed and felt something as he went over the top — he got his leg rope caught on something — but he thought nothing of it until he saw the photo,” Hasson said.
A shark researcher told reporters the shark looks like a small great white but that it appears it was “spooked,” swimming away from the child and not in a “hunting approach.”
Either way, this is a photobomb I would never want on my bucket list. And if I ever thought of surfing — or swimming for that matter — off the coast of Australia, forget that noise.
Although you have a better chance of being struck and killed by lightning (see shark stats here), I’m not taking any chances with Jaws.
Hasson said he was “back in the surf” with Eden and his siblings, aged 12 and 5, soon after the photo was taken, saying “Everyone’s back to business. It’s too good a lifestyle sport not to.”
Josh Helmuth is the editor of Crave Sports
Photo @CNN
