As the top shark expert in Massachusetts, Greg Skomal is used to up-close-and-personal experiences with great whites.
But even he was a little surprised when a shark he spotted during a recent tagging trip breached the water and jumped up with its jaws open.
It happened as Skomal stood on the extended bow of a research vessel.
A video posted on Facebook by the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy on Monday shows Skomal, a senior biologist with the state Division of Marine Fisheries, hopping away from the open jaws.


‘Did you see that? Did you see that?’ he says as he immediately returns to looking for the shark.
In a statement, the conservancy said: ‘While encounters like this one are rare, this video shows that they’re certainly possible.’
The great white measures about 12ft in length. They can weigh anywhere between 1,500 and 2,400 pounds.
This is the second time in the last week that a close call with a shark has been reported in Cape Cod.
Dramatic drone photos captured the moment a great white shark swimming just a few feet away from a paddle boarder.
Massachusetts lifeguard Cody DeGroff was on Nauset Beach testing out his new drone camera last Monday when he spotted the giant shark near paddle boarder Roger Freeman.

Lifeguard Cody DeGroff was testing out his new drone camera last Monday when he spotted the giant shark near paddle boarder Roger Freeman

‘I panned up and that’s when I saw the paddleboarder and the shark swimming closer to each other,’ DeGroff told ABC News. ‘It was a crazy, crazy scenario.’
Thankfully, the shark continued swimming and did not interact with Freeman, 54, who didn’t notice anything was amiss.
‘Close encounter of a peaceful kind’ the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy tweeted, along with DeGroff’s photos.
‘These amazing photos of a white shark near a SUP just north of Nauset public beach. The paddle boarder did not see the shark.’
Freeman said he was stunned when he returned to the beach to see how close he’d come to the underwater predator.
‘Don’t look down is what they say, right?’ Freeman joked. ‘I’m glad I got to go home for breakfast and not be breakfast.’


Last Sunday, swimmers and surfers in Cape Cod were forced to flee the ocean after a great white shark attacked a seal
Last Sunday, swimmers and surfers in Cape Cod were forced to flee the ocean after a great white shark attacked a seal.
Video showed lifeguards frantically motioning people to get out of the water and a bloody seal carcass floating in the waves after the attack.
’15’ Great White swam thru 30 surfers had a snack…’ Ken Martin tweeted with the video.
Freeman admits he was a little nervous when he set out, after being informed of the incident.
‘I remember thinking to myself, a little melodramatically, someone might think it’s crazy to be out here with sharks in the water,’ he told the Cape Cod Times.
‘But on this glorious Cape Cod morning I say it’s crazy not to be.’
The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy said that two great whites, one of which was 12ft, were seen close to shore at Head of Meadow Beach earlier that day which led to the beach being closed for an hour.
Meanwhile Freeman was glad to have had escaped his close encounter unharmed but urged Cape Cod authorities to introduce a better warning system for surfers and swimmers.