Videos going viral online have captured the hair-raising sight of a great white shark taking a bite out of a fishing vessel. The videos were captured by a group of friends fishing in the waters of Tampa Bay in Florida when the huge shark approached them.
"It was breathtaking. It came right up and took a chunk out of one of our motors," Erika Almond told Fox 13 Tampa Bay.
"It's not unusual, we expect sharks when you're fishing and chumming like that but what made this unique was it was about a 14- to 16-foot great white shark. We couldn't believe what we were seeing," she said.
Ms Almond was with friends Tyler Levesque, Peter Lambie, and Gretchen Cooper on her boat named "Offshore Therapy" when the incident occurred, reports Daily Mail.
Footage shared by Ms Almond on Facebook shows the shark circling her boat and trying to bite it.
Tyler Levesque, captain of the boat, was even able to reach out and push the shark away - but not before it took a chunk out of one of the boat's motors.
"Great white today! Caution shark attacks boat!" he wrote while sharing a clip of the shark on Facebook.
Although her boat sustained minor damage, Ms Almond has called the encounter "amazing."
"We knew it was a special moment," she said. "It's truly an amazing experience to see all the things we see offshore and you never know what you're going to find."
Great white sharks are the largest predatory fish on Earth. They can grow up to 20-feet in length.
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