If you want aerial photos that prove ignorance is bliss then you’ve come to the right place, a certain Jean Tresfon taking a number of birds-eye view photos that show we may come across sharks far more often than we think.

Shooting from a gyrocopter in the False Bay area Jean managed to capture these fantastic images of a longboarder surfing near Strandfontein, close to a group of trek fisherman he assumes were looking for yellowtail.

Here’s Jean talking to Wavescape:

“It was an interesting flight this morning which ended with me spending 20 minutes watching the shark activity at Muizenberg/Strandfontein. Lots of surfers out at Surfer’s Corner and no great whites around, but lots of baitfish shoals and plenty of bronze whalers, threshers, hammerheads, rays and dolphins around,” he said.

“One lone long boarder out at Strandfontein unwisely sitting at the backline right alongside (probably 100m away) from where the trek netters were busy. On the first pass I saw five large sharks within a few hundred metres of the long boarder (who I think was female but hard to tell for sure). As I watched several of the sharks passed within metres of the longboarder, with one even swimming right underneath her”…

“At one point she even fell into the water while one of the sharks was nearby. I was nervous for her sake as she spent a lot of time sitting on the board with her bare feet dangling in the water but the sharks were not interested in the slightest. Just goes to show that the sharks really are not interested in humans and in the clean water there was no problem with mistaken identity,” he said.

Yeah, something tells me this lady was far better off not knowing about those finned friends nearby.

Happy surfing out there guys and girls.

[source:wavescape]

[images:Jean Tresfon]