‘Holy [bleep!]’ Florida beachgoers got a visit from a large shark in the shallows
Beachgoers got quite the thrill of seeing a hammerhead shark up close Monday in Boca Grande Pass, at the south end of Gasparilla Island on the Gulf of Mexico.
In a video shared by Florida woman Wendy Donnelly, of North Port, you can see the large shark thrashing around in about a foot of water, using its hammer-shaped snout like a vacuum as onlookers scream.
“Holy [bleep!],” says a woman.
A fishing boat was nearby, another person says in the video.
Sightings are not all that uncommon during hammerhead shark season, which runs from March until July.
A hammerhead got up and close and personal back in June 2019, in Navarre Beach, east of Pensacola.
A post on the Navarre Beach Fire Rescue Facebook page showed a roughly 13-foot-long hammerhead shark swimming feet from the shore, near where some scenes from “Jaws II” were filmed.
Though it’s unsettling to be in such close proximity to a hammerhead, according to National Geographic, they do not pose a major threat to humans.
Most species are “fairly small and are considered harmless to humans,” reads the website. “However, the great hammerhead’s enormous size and fierceness make it potentially dangerous, though few attacks have been recorded.”
This story was originally published June 18, 2021 at 1:17 PM.
