An Adelaide kayaker whose close encounter with a shark was captured on camera admits he only became aware of the incident hours later while ensconced in the safety of his living room.
Andy Burnell ventured about 1.5 kilometres offshore of Grange Beach on Sunday and was enjoying the choppy afternoon conditions.
A keen ocean photographer, he dropped an underwater camera over the side of his kayak to a depth of about six or seven metres.
"I took my oldest GoPro, the one that I could afford to lose if something went wrong, tied it to a fishing line and lowered it down," Mr Burnell said.
"Then I just drifted around in my kayak for a while, probably about half an hour or so, and I didn't see anything."
It was only when he was reviewing footage to post on his Facebook page, Crab.e.cam, that Mr Burnell realised he had not been alone.
"I paddled back in, went home, and downloaded my footage later that night and I started looking through [it]," he said.
What Mr Burnell saw "just absolutely blew" his mind.
"I actually gave myself a jump scare in my own living room because I was looking through the footage and then suddenly there was a shark right there," he said.
"About five or six minutes at least that shark was sitting right underneath my kayak just looking at that camera, and I was completely unaware. I had no idea.
"I'm kind of lucky that it didn't bite it because I would have lost the camera. It was only tied on with fishing line, and I would have wondered what happened."
Shark believed to be a great white
Mr Burnell, who works for the Department for Environment and Water, and whose passion for underwater filming was reported on by the ABC earlier this year, said the shark appeared to be a juvenile great white.
"There's no way that that shark is more than six feet long and that's cool in itself, because I think this is a really, really young white shark, a real baby," he said.
"It's got a very damaged right fin, and on the other side, on the left side of the body, right in the middle, there's a big semi-circular mark that looks to me like teeth marks, so it looks to me like it's been attacked by another shark and it's carrying the scars."
Mr Burnell said the incident would not influence the amount of time he spent in the water and did not believe the animal had presented a threat.
But he said it served as a reminder to swimmers ahead of summer to be aware of the potential presence of sharks.
"They are part of the environment, they're there, we've got to enjoy our water sports and just take precautions," Mr Burnell said.
