What started off as a fun family day at the beach almost ended in disaster for a Florida family after a shark was seen swimming mere feet away from a father’s children. However, thanks to the help of his drone, he was able to intervene before tragedy struck.
Father-of-three Dan Watson has shared images from the beach day, which took place at New Smyrna Beach in Orlando, Florida, that have since gone viral. Why? Because he was able to capture a shot of a shark hanging about in shallow waters way too close to where his children were playing.
Upon realizing what the shadow in the water was, Dan says he immediately got his kids out of the ocean. “See that dark shadow making its way straight for the shore & those people? That was my view this weekend while flying my Mavic 2 Pro… and oh, 3 of those people are my kids!” he wrote in an Instagram post in which he shared in the lucky photographs.
He continued, “Swipe to see the next image that resulted from my yelling to get out of the water and the unmistakable outline of a shark. Definitely too close of an encounter for my liking!” he continued. The frightening event happened around 5:30, right after the lifeguards went off duty for the day.
It was by a complete stroke of luck that Dan had brought his drone to the beach in the first place. The father works as a professional photographer and videographer- he even has his own YouTube channel where he makes reviews of cameras and related equipment. However, before his family’s June 23rd trip to the beach, the father said he decided to bring the done to get some cool shots of his loved ones.
“I yelled ‘Shark!’ and my wife ran down and grabbed them out of the water really quickly,” he told Today of the scary encounter. “I didn’t know I had captured an image. I showed my wife, and that was moment of, ‘What if we hadn’t flown the drone?’ The shark seemed like it was coming right to shore.”
Dan and his wife have a daughter and two sons: 9-year old Grace, 6-year old Jonathan, and 5-year old Landon. Understandably, he says his kids feel spooked after such a close-call. “My daughter was pretty amazed and a little nervous,” he explained. “I think we’re going to work on our sandcastle skills now.”