This is the terrifying moment when two paddleboarders were encircled by a hammerhead shark off the coast of Florida.
Malea Tribble, from Fort Lauderdale, and her paddleboard partner Gabe Barajas got into a scary situation when they completed the Crossing for Cystic Fibrosis event, in which participants travel 80 miles from the Bahamas to Florida on a paddleboard to raise money.
While Tribble and Barajas were paddling in the ocean with no land in sight, Tribble felt a few bumps on the bottom of her board, but was unaware that a curious hammerhead shark was swimming right below her while she was in the middle of the Gulf.
Her husband Ricky – who was on the support boat – saw the animal’s long dorsal fin as it lifted up behind Tribble’s shelf, and he ordered his wife to paddle over to him.
“Malea, come over to the side,” Ricky can be heard saying in a video posted to Crossing for Cystic Fibrosis’s Instagram page. “Keep coming.”
Someone else on the boat informs the paddleboarder that the shark is “following you.”
Malea Tribble, from Fort Lauderdale, and her paddle boarding partner Gabe Barajas got into a scary situation when they completed the Crossing for Cystic Fibrosis event, in which participants travel 80 miles from the Bahamas to Florida on a paddleboard to raise money
A hammerhead showed its fin on Tribble’s board as it followed her across the ocean
“Is it a big one?” she asks.
“It’s hard to say,” someone replied.
Tribble pulls her board close to the boat and sits down as they call to Barajas to stay on his boat, a few feet away from the boat.
“Here’s a hammerhead,” Ricky tells Barajas as his wife puts a fake fin on her head to indicate what’s going on.
Afterward, the pair stayed close to the boat as they continued their journey back to Florida.
Looking back at the moment, Tribble said she never “felt unsafe.”
“We felt calm. I didn’t have time to let myself be scared,” she told event organizers. “Even an encounter as unique as mine wouldn’t stop me from participating in The Crossing again. Our ‘why’ for this event is the foundation itself.’
Neither was injured, and Tribble said “no one felt unsafe” during the incident
The pair stayed close to the boat after the shark sighting
Crossing event founder Travis Suit said he was “grateful that Malea wasn’t harmed and was so proud of the Tribble’s calm and disciplined response during the situation”.
The crossing event kicks off at midnight and helps raise money for the Piper’s Angels Foundation to help cystic fibrosis patients and families.
Each paddler must raise a minimum of $2,000. Barajas revealed on his Instagram that he and Tribble raised $10,000.
Tribble has competed in the event three times, twice as a paddler.
According to Shark Attack File, there have been only 16 recorded incidents between humans and hammerhead sharks since 1990, and there have been no fatalities.
Tribble has taken part in the 80-mile journey three times, twice as a paddler
There have been only about 1,200 shark attacks worldwide in the past 50 years, with a fatality rate of 14 percent, according to Floridapanhandle.com.
Sharks often attack in the afternoon without provocation and in July 2022 the highest number of attacks was 17. Many of the fatal attacks occurred in Florida, Hawaii, California and South Carolina in the US. The US has the most attacks, over 700 out of 1,200.
Australia is second with just over 250 attacks in the past 50 years, according to Floridapanhandle.com.
Of the 1,200 attacks, only 180 were great white sharks.