Sometimes, flying a drone in restricted areas can land you in hot water, like that chap who snapped the now iconic #AmINext protest photo.

There can also be a happy ending, though, and there’s one surfer in Australia who owes a debt of gratitude to drone operator Christopher Joye.

Using the drone, Joye spotted a shark that was showing a keen interest in a surfer off Werri Beach in New South Wales on Sunday.

Newsweek reports:

“At Werri Beach today this large shark was approaching a surfer, and I used my drone’s speaker system to warn him,” Joye wrote alongside the 50-second clip. “Watch him look up at the drone, then bolt, with the sudden splashing warding off the approaching shark.”

The video clearly shows the shadowy outline of the large shark swimming directly toward the surfer, who immediately takes his legs out of the water after hearing the drone’s speaker.

“I don’t think he saw it,” Joye said, referencing the shark, in response to one Twitter user who asked about the surfer’s reaction. “He looked puzzled when I was relaying that a large shark had been on approach when he was back on the beach. He certainly heard the message.”

…he was using the Mavic 2 Enterprise Dual, which comes equipped with a slew of cutting-edge features, including infrared imaging, night vision and the emergency speaker. It remains unknown what type of shark was spotted.

This video below splices together footage from Joye’s original tweet and a follow-up video that shows the drone’s alarm speaker system in action.

There is no sound until the 28-second mark, where the speaker system is illustrated:

I like that the voice is distinctly Australian, too.

Whilst Shark Spotter teams will be monitoring our coastlines this summer, the likelihood of an encounter with a great white, especially around Cape Town, remains slim.

[source:newsweek]