Hammerhead sharks suddenly surround boaters in Alabama. Watch the scene unfold
Dozens of boaters out for a day in the sun in Alabama got a special surprise when they suddenly weren’t alone in the water.
A large group of boats were anchored off Robinson Island, an island in the middle of a coastal bay, when a school of sharks swam up to the boats, causing swimmers to rush to get out of the water.
In a video posted by Meredith Perry on June 10, the few swimmers left in the water are shown leaping up into their boat as the hammerhead sharks swim ever closer.
The fins of the sharks splash around in the water as the group circles between the boats anchored in the shallow waters.
Perry’s fiance, Paul Hubble, told WLBT there were as many as 8 sharks swimming around between the boats.
“All of sudden we started hearing people say shark, shark and then everybody getting on the boat. People thought they were fixing to get eaten alive or something,” Hubble told the outlet. “We got the kids, and I walked around the boat and noticed they were hammerheads. You could tell they were feeding on something and doing their thing. Everybody was climbing all over the boats and stuff. It was very dramatic to see for sure in probably like 2 (feet) of water, if that.”
Hubble stayed in the water after everyone else had made a run for it, and his fiance can be heard in the video asking, “Where is Paul?” to which another person answers, “He’s in the water!”
“If I had known my fiance was filming me, I would have knelt down and let them slurk around,” Hubble told WLBT. “I’ve never seen that, every weekend for years I’ve come out and I’ve never seen sharks come up like that.”
Hubble said the sharks stuck around for about 10 minutes before swimming out to deeper waters.
Reactions to the video ranged from “That’s so cool,” to “OOOOO HELLLL NAWWWLLLL,” in the comment section.
Perry recorded the video as they were anchored off Robinson Island, a popular summer boating stop in Orange Beach, near the Florida-Alabama border.
On a nearby beach a 14-foot, pregnant hammerhead shark washed up two months ago, McClatchy News previously reported.
A hammerhead “feeds mostly at dusk,” the Shark Research Institute reports, according to McClatchy News, and uses their head shape to “bludgeon” and pin stingrays and other aquatic life.
However, “Most hammerhead species are fairly small and are considered harmless to humans,” National Geographic says. ”Few attacks have been recorded.”
“I think everybody needs to know that when we go down there, we’re in their world,” Hubble told WLBT. “That happens so rare. People need to know it’s a fun place to go, you need to keep going.”
Orange Beach is on the Gulf of Mexico, about 26 miles west of Pensacola, Florida.
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