Courtesy video and photo. New Smyrna Beach photographer and surfer Kem McNair has received worlwide recognition for his July 3 photo of a 5-foot spinner shark that jumped behind two surfers near the South Jetty. "When the water is clear and you ride wave, you can see them while riding your surf board," he said, adding he was standing in 3 feet of water when he captured the shark with his camera. "We see sharks like that two to three times a day," McNair said. "I shot him in half a second -- three frames. Before I could get him again, he was gone. People can't belive a shark can jump out of the water like that, but I've seen it many times."
NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- If 2007 was the "Year of the Shark" in Volusia County with 22 bites, then 2008 had to be the "Year of the Shark Part Deux" with 24 bite victims. Just ask 6-year-old Zane Atcha of Deltona.
Getting bit by a shark surely opened his eyes to the attention he could get from grown-ups. "This is pretty weird," he said after being released from the emergency room at Bert Fish Medical Center May 7, for a couple of stitches to close a small bite on his leg, and he wasn't referring to the shark. Oh no, it was all the media attention with TV cameras focused on him and an earlier ambulance ride from the beach.
Asked about the bite, the boy said it was "kinda" worth it. The boy was at the beach with his kindergarten graduation class when he was bitten in 18 inches of water off the 27th Avenue Beach Approach, further south of the South Jetty, where the majority of bites occurred and surfers were the victims.
The bites were mostly nips that required a quick stitch, though one surfer suffered tendon damage to one of his feet. The record was never in doubt as the totals grew considerably as the weather warmed up -- the result of bait fish spawning in the Jetty -- the preferred food of the sharks -- some as long as 5 feet.
The mark was broken Sept. 28, and the victim was thought to be David Logan, 44, of Jupiter, but an hour earlier, David Carr, 40, of Deltona, was bitten, according to the Volusia County Beach Patrol, which clarified the information the following week.
All but a few of the bites occurred in New Smyrna Beach near the South Jetty so perhaps New Smyrna Beach will get the distinction of being the Shark Capital of the World instead of Volusia County.