Swimming with sharks in FL
© Stan Battles
A woman swimming off the shoreline of Panama City Beach got a bit too close for comfort to a pretty big shark and someone in a nearby hotel captured the close encounter on video.

According to the Panama City News Herald, the video was shot by Stan Battles from the 28th floor of his beachside resort. It shows the shark checking out the swimmer in the Gulf of Mexico as she swims through water. It appears there is nobody else around.


Battles told the paper he'd been watching the shark swim around in the muck and sea grass, staying mostly hidden, until the swimmer came along. The shark kept a wide circle around her, and at one point, swims far ahead of her and turns around heading back in her direction. She apparently didn't realize she had a follower.

Within a few minutes, some people on the beach began to notice the shark and began shouting to her to let her know there was a shark nearby and to swim back to shore.

The woman, who spoke to Battles on the beach, said she never saw it.