Cape Cod surfers narrowly escape shark attack

A pair of surfers have narrowly escaped a savage shark attack on a seal just feet away from them.

Nauset Beach in Orleans, Massachusetts closed on Monday after the attack, which terrified beachgoers who thought the trail of blood in the water was from a person.

A pair of surfers were just feet away when the shark, believed to be a Great White, ripped into a seal.

Screams pealed from the beach as the frantic surfers paddled for shore, a video shot at the beach shows,

A beachgoer waves frantically to the two surfers to his right as a shark rips into a seal to his left

The two surfers are seen paddling frantically toward shore as the terrified crowd looks on

The two surfers are seen paddling frantically toward shore as the terrified crowd looks on

‘I was just, like, pulling my board, and people were yelling, ‘Get out the water, get out the water!” one of the surfers, Nisi Schlanger, told NBC New York. ‘I thought I was dead.’

The other surfer recalled: ‘I just swam for my life right there, just dreading the moment the shark was gonna pull me in and suck me in.’

Beachgoers on Cape Cod were warned earlier this summer that a boom in shark activity could see as many as 150 Great Whites in the waters this year.

A lifeguard rushes to check on the two surfers as the shark feeds on a seal in the waters

A lifeguard rushes to check on the two surfers as the shark feeds on a seal in the waters

After the surfers make it to safety, the seal is seen leaving a trail of blood in the water

After the surfers make it to safety, the seal is seen leaving a trail of blood in the water

The Massachusetts Marine Fisheries said numbers have been climbing in recent years, with a regional population of 147 in 2016 – more than double the number, 68, in 2014. 

Scientist Gregory Skomal, who started tracking shark numbers with a team at the MMF, said tagging research shows the sharks ‘do come back each year’, the Boston Herald reports.

‘When you have overlap with humans, you do get the potential for these interactions, you know, a shark biting a person’ Skomal said, before adding the killer fish aren’t hunting humans – as was the case in Jaws, which was filmed in nearby Martha’s Vineyard. 

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk