Video: Sharks Swarm Surfer Paddling Out in Florida

Dashel Pierson
·2 min read

Unofficially, Florida is the “shark bite capital of America.”

And that’s because, officially, Florida is home to the most shark attacks of any state – more than Hawaii or California. Looking at shark attack data, recorded since 1981, “The most common place to be attacked by a shark in the US is Florida…Hawaii, California and South Carolina are in the top 4,” according to FloridaPanhandle.com.

Need proof of how sharky Florida is? Look (and cringe) below.

The clip comes from Virginia Beach-born, Florida-based surfer Michael Dunphy, as captured via drone from surf filmmaker, Sam Scribner. And yeah, it shows a heck of a lot of sharks in a very small, very shallow area where the waves are breaking.

Good luck paddling out and not getting a little nip.

In fact, just last year, Dunphy was actually attacked (or nipped, rather) by a shark while surfing at another Florida spot, Cocoa Beach.

“I can officially say that I got bit by a shark right there,” Dunphy says in the video from that incident, referring to the tiny trickle of blood on his foot.

“It came up [and] he bit on my foot. Like, he missed it and then he came back and he was stuck in my leash, all tangled up, and then the wave popped up, and I was like, ‘ah, shark!’”

“That was my first official shark attack. It was a shark attack, count it.”

Last year, Florida led the United States in shark bites, according to the International Shark Attack File, clocking in at 16. And with a handful of bites already documented this year, the US, and Florida specifically, are on pace to top the list again.

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