Nothing out of the ordinary here for Calfornian waters. āMalibu Artistā has been posting many aerial views of such interactions on YouTube for years by flying his drone to highlight the presence of mostly juvenile white sharks in close proximity to surfers & swimmers without fatal results.
Bites by said juveniles on humans in their backyard are a rarity, given the large number of juveniles present only a stoneās throw away.
Never trust a shark! They tell āgreat whiteā lies. 
WTF??? Well it seems the drone pilot has a sense of humour and one of these days heāll get the shot he thinks is coming!
Umm, mostly???!!!
An interesting play on words there, however next year itāll be 50 years after my very first scuba dive, since when Iāve done several thousand dives, mostly in so-called āshark infested watersā in the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, Caribbean, Eastern & Western Pacific & South China Sea, many in close proximity to various species of shark, including so-called āman-eatersā. All my limbs are still intact which is important when required to fly any of my 3 drones, eh?
Haha. Iād say! Limbs in tactā¦as well as the balls ā¦ to do it in the first place. 
As far as Iām aware āThe Malibu Artistā has never seen an attack on any swimmer, surfer, or paddle boarder, despite videoing many, many hours of footage in Californian waters with his DJI drones. Indeed an increasing number of marine biologists are accessing his footage to acquaint themselves about white shark-human interactions to further their knowledge about the subject and not merely accepting the lurid headlines in the Redtop Press who well realise that, like politics, fear sells!
From āThe Malibu Artistāsā drone observations southern California waters appear to be a relatively safe haven from their predation by the larger adults, who seem to congregate between August to November further south in the waters surrounding Mexicoās Guadalupe island where they show up each year to predate on newly born, juvenile, elephant seals where thereās an elephant seal rookery. I should know as I did multiple dives there in 2007, the only time Iāve ever cage dived with any shark species, which was a wise precaution since those large, adult, great whites were decidedly in feeding mode and scuba divers in open water would be advised not to undertake unnecessary risks. Having said that not all shark species consider divers fair game, thatās the risk open mainly to swimmers or snorkellers splashing about at the surface which will often attract attention if a large predator is in the vicinity.
A few weeks before the coronavirus pandemic struck in January 2020, I was in Grand Bahama island viewing multiple Tiger sharks being hand fed in only 10 metres of water by female dive masters while we videoed the proceedings. Such interactions have been done for over 20 years in that location and the sharks know not to bite the hand that feeds them. Not only Tiger sharks but also Caribbean reef sharks & lemon sharks try to get in on the action, while further south around Bimini island we encountered Great Hammerheads & Bull sharks, but if one is an experienced diver and obey instructions, donāt do anything daft like waving oneās hands around, then one is safe enough to even stroke some of the bottom dwelling nurse sharks which hang about, ever hopefull of snaffling anything left uneaten by the bigger sharks.
Donāt believe me? Check out āTiger Beachā on YouTube, youāll see that sometimes what the press say about sharks (and drones) is often sensationalist BS designed to scare people in order to sell papers.
As long as one is a qualfied diver, with at least 50 dives under oneās belt, one can experience what I did in January/February 2020 off both Grand Bahama & Bimini islands, diving with 12-14 foot long Tiger sharks & Great Hammerheads, as well as slightly smaller Bull, Caribbean, Lemon & nurse sharks. Prior to us getting into the water, our liveaboard vessel would attract local sharks to our vicinity by the smell of juicy chunks of fish at the boatās stern where one could capture aerial drone footage above the melee. Talk about a scrum!
One down side was the requirement by the Bahamian authorities to provide cash in US dollars for 50% of the droneās value, repayable on exiting the Bahamas, to discourage tourists selling their drones to Bahamian locals at a big profit as drones are considered a luxury item there and are highly taxed if a local wants to buy one legitimately.
Thatās very interesting and thank you for taking the time to reply seriously to my adolescent jokery.
Recently I met a chap who was a dive instructor in Egypt for many years. I asked him about the recent awful attack on the young Russian guy which I rather stupidly watched. To underline what you said, he asked me when have I heard of divers being attacked out there. He added the Egyptians feed the sharks. Also a swimmer on the surface may likened to prey. He further added itās then a question of when, not if.
About 25 years ago I was working on a farm outside Johannesburg. They had many animals there, including a lion and lioness. I asked the owner if I could go in the enclosure to take some photos as the fence was in the way. They were lying down 20 yrds away and both raised their heads to look at me. Yes, I still occasionally wonder if I wouldāve made it out had one made an effort to get me. Call me a sensitive soul but as much as I find diving appealing I couldnāt swim in the ocean knowing sharks are about. Itās about the 0.000001% of risk that keeps me away! Iāll stick to catching the odd trout. I will look at the video you suggestedā¦
Just to say I watched Tiger Beach which I found riveting and thanks again for recommending it. Then I watched The Ultimate Tiger Beach Videoā¦ Crikey! I must say it looks quite phenomenal and it must be quite something to dive with such creatures. That said, the slo-mo video makes them all look rather docile and easy to handle or react to. Iāve fished (not for sharks) in the caribbean and seen how fast they can be when attacking (black tips and lemons) and I would say you are obviously experienced but brave too - even if youāre only kneeling on the seabed. That said, it is you not me, experiencing up close such magnificent and perfectly tuned fish.
Good for you, looking at that video I recommended. I recall my first major expedition in 1977 to shore dive from Eilat to Ras Mohamed, Israeli Army occupied Egypt, camping with our guides (ex-Israeli military) at the tip of the Sinai desert where the Gulf of Aqaba meets the Gulf of Suez as it widens out into the broader Red Sea. Our party of 20 or so, including big-wigs from the BSAC (British Sub-Aqua Club), planned to snorkel in order to conserve air over 20 metre water depths, finning some 200 metres from shore to the tip of 2 underwater pinnacles (Shark Reef & Yolanda Reef). The idea then was to switch from snorkels to our scuba air supply and drop down the deeper seaward side of the pinnacles in the hope of encountering sharks. Being my first hoped for encounter with sharks, I was determined to press ahead, despite one of our group opting out when he asked the Israeli military guys āWhat do we do if we encounter a shark on the first snorkelling leg & it heads for us?ā āSwitch from snorkel to scuba equipment immediately, then drop down to a few metres underwater, and the shark will turn awayā was the Israelisā advice! Upon which my colleague suddenly realised he had an urgent business appointment elsewhere, which didnāt include that dive!
Shame really, it was a marvellous dive, but we saw nary a single shark! I had to wait until 2 years later in 1979 on an expedition to dive on the remnants of Jacques Cousteauās underwater habitat in the Sudan at Sanganeb reef to see my first sharks at 50 metres depth, but the beggars werenāt interested in swimming closer to us by staying just a bit too far away for me to film them.
A far more scary encounter was on returning to our dive boat & making the mistake of swimming too close to the nesting site of Red Sea trigger fish, only about 18 inches long, but one attacked me and bit one of my flippers! Sharks? Nah, nesting trigger fish are the buggars to beware of!!!
What a story! That area mustāve been quite different back then: Not just the virgin coastline but, I suppose, the abundance of marina life too.
It is also interesting the sharks were difficult to find. I wonder what has changed in the meantime?
I hadnāt heard of Triggerfish so I looked it upā¦ and Iām glad you didnāt need to! I have heard of accidents with Groupers though.
Of course since those days, after the Egyptian & Israeli governments signed their agreement for the return of the Sinai peninsula, Egypt began to see the economic benefits of developing much of their Red Sea coastline as a major tourist centre, not just for divers but particularly as a European winter sun destination. Regrettably the coast, which once was festooned even in the shallows right off the beach with small, hard corals, is now largely bereft of these due to the inconsiderate behaviour of tourists who destroy said corals as they wade in the shallows enjoying their vacations.
Despite lurid press headlines, in many coral reef areas of the world divers arenāt always bumping into sharks at every turn. Their typical prey of fish are far more numerous, but divers sometimes struggle to see many of their predators which of course are often sharks, unless one dives in areas known for shark activity, due to the odious practice of shark finning which has decimated shark populations.
These days I dive mainly in Indonesia, especially the area of the Dampier Strait of Raja Ampat, off the Birdās Head Peninsula of West Papua province (Indonesian ruled, western half of the large island known as Papua New Guinea). When I first dived there in 2004 there was a dearth of reef sharks, culled by the actions of shark finning boats in previous decades, but fortunately the authorities have since declared the region off limits to those boats and on my last visit in December 2022 it was encouraging to see numerous reef black tip sharks in the shallows outside the restaurant of the eco resort I stayed at, just waiting for us to throw them a few morsels of fish.
This area has the greatest number of coral & reef fish species on the planet, besides which Indonesia also has reasonably liberal drone regulations enabling one to capture aerial vistas of beautiful island scenery to add to underwater videos of colourful, marine species which look as though theyāve been oil painted by Pablo Picasso high on speed, crack, marijuana, or a combination of all three!
Are you in sales? If you carry on your descriptions you might turn me into a diver!
Have you videos to post here combining aerial and underwater footage?
Have you dived in Cuba? I have in mind Los Jardines de la Reina which has been designated a national park and is, in my humble opinion one of the most amazing places on earth. And I long to go there again!
Sales? Haha, now thereās a thought! I dived in Cuba back in 1981 at the Isle of Pines (or Isle of Youth as it was renamed) but as yet not the Gardens of the Queen but Iāve heard great things about it. The one thing that puts me off going back is their blanket ban on drone flying.
I used to have a good friend & dive buddy who knew all about video editing who I simply gave my footage to to produce the finished article, unfortunately now at 90 years old heās been diagnosed with Alzheimerās and is no longer capable. Shame, as he also used to do windsurfing until 4 years ago but no more, a great loss.
At 80 years old next year Iāve done many things but unfortunately never learnt the art of video editing. As a single person my only close living relatives are my late brotherās 3 daughters who are much more tech savvy in that field than I and who could have passed on some of their expertise to me, but the only one of them who lives close enough for daily contact is unfortunately a member of an organisation of fanatical religious zealots (akin to the Christian Taliban) which came under Northamptonshire polce scrutiny in recent years for abuse of adherentsā children, physically & sexually, but she avoids contact with me like the plague because Iām āan Unbelieverā.
I have some interesting aerial clips of West Papua, one of my favourite dive locations, as well as underwater footage there and shark encounters in the Philippines & the Bahamas but with the illness of my old dive buddy whose video editing expertise I relied upon, I unfortunately donāt possess the skills myself to even transfer my shots to YouTube or this forum. Heck, I didnāt even have a mobile phone until last year when my hand was forced to buy one in order to download my covid-19 vaccination status onto one to show to Indonesian immigration in order to enter the coutry for a dive trip there in November 2022, and a neighbourās 21 year old daughter had to show me how to do that! What with learning how to fly drones, the next stumbling block is how to use a mobile phone in a waterproof housing to shoot decent video, hence Iāve neglected the editing side of things. At my age, talk about a learning curve!
On the subject of āturning you into a diverā. If you can swim there are worse pastimes one can undertake. Searching the internet for āBSACā brings one to the website of the British Sub-Aqua Club whose honorary president is Prince William, before him Prince Charles and before him the Duke of Edinburgh, whereby a search for a branch of the BSAC near to you might prove fruitful. Theyāll teach a person not only how to snorkel properly but also to scuba dive in the safety of your local leisure centreās swimming pool for the price of a 1 Year membership.
In research for my diving travels thatās how I came across the benefits of drones to capture aerial video of the places I visit to dive. Scuba diving & drone flying at exotic destinations certainly keeps me occupied!
I didnāt know Cuba banned the use of drones. That said it doesnāt surprise me and even in the Jardines where we were there was a āgovernment employeeā who was keeping an eye on everyone. Pretty easy to work out who it was too!
Thank you for the tip on getting into diving, and only last night did I discover my wife loves diving. Weāve only been together 11 years! That, as we sat down to watch āThe Deepest Breathā which you mayāve heard about. If not, itās a new doco on Netflix about two freedivers at the blue hole in Dahabā¦ and not the most uplifting film either. My wife works for Red Bull so extreme sports are normal for her, but even they stay away from this activity.
At the risk of promising too much I can try to edit some of your material for you if you can get it me. You could upload via wetransfer a maximum of 2GB or use Dropbox for a further free 2GB. If I can help, Iād be happy to.
Our party to Cuba in 1981 also had a āminderā accompany us where ever we went, except on our actual scuba dives. On a day trip to the Fuerza castle situated at the mouth of Havana harbour we spotted a Cuban submarine heading out to sea on patrol which I filmed with my cine camera. By the time our tourist coach got back to our hotel I was met with an internal security official demanding I turn over the film! Tensions were high as Reagan had recently been elected in the USA & had raised fears about invading Cuba again, even after the debacle of the Bay of Pigs failed invasion 20 years before.
I havenāt seen the Netflix documentary but it sounds from your description as though itās about competitive free diving which Iāve never been into, preferring to spent an hour or so on scuba watching the antics of marine life rather than pushing the boundaries of depths one can attain on a single breath of air, too dangerous in my book! Iāve dived the āBlue Holeā in Dahab but too many people have lost their lives there for my liking even on scuba, attempting to reach an underwater arch way situated Iām told at some 200 feet down. Those kind of depths should be left to specialists on rebreathers or exotic mixed gases, which is beyond my level of expertise!
Iāll look in due course into trying to follow up on your kind offer of editing my aerial footage taken in West Papua. Watch this space!