This you gotta see… watch the video of these guys frolicking with some pretty big sharks in Hawaii.

Thanks Amy!

Not to be confused with the world’s sharkiest beaches, Forbes has put together a list of the wold’s most dangerous beaches. I guess it’s not just the sharks we need to worry about…

1. Shark Attacks/Bites
New Smyrna Beach, Volusia County, Fla. (duh)
Runner Up: Hawaii

2. Pollution
Hacks Point Beach, Kent County, Md./
Beachwood Beach West, Ocean County, N.J.

3. Jellyfish Attacks
Northern Australia

4. Rip Current Drowning
Brevard County, Fla.
Runner Up: Volusia County, Fla.

5. Boating Accidents
Florida
Runner Up: California

6. Lightning
Florida
Runner up: Colorado (they have beaches?)

[source]

Ok… another one. This time, a male surfer got bit on the left calf by a shark at New Smyrna Beach this morning.

The man, whose name has not yet been released, was treated at Bert Fish Memorial Hospital. Volusia County Beach Patrol Capt. Jack Driskell said the man needed stitches.

This is the second shark bite at Smyrna this weekend. On Saturday morning, a 21-year-old man was bitten on the right foot while swimming in the same area of New Smyrna Beach. He was treated and released from the hospital.

And last Sunday, a 14-year-old girl was also bitten on the foot by a shark while surfing in the same area.

That makes EIGHT shark bites in Volusia County so far this year.

Not to mention the fatal attack in San Diego on Friday.

See ya at the pool.

[source]

If you’re planning your summer beach vacation, you might want to cross a few destinations off your wish list. Here’s a list of North America’s sharkiest beaches (according to Forbes Traveler).

1. New Smyrna Beach, Fla.
Thanks to thousands of annual beachgoers and untold toothy predators hunting offshore, New Smyrna is the shark attack capital of the world. That’s according to the International Shark Attack File, which cites 210 attacks in the beach’s home county of Volusia, Fla. But miles of white sand and consistent surf breaks continue to draw vacationers and locals alike into New Smyrna’s waters.

2. North Shore, Oahu, Hawaii
Number two on the International Shark Attack File for unprovoked attacks is Oahu, where tiger sharks, Galapagos sharks and sandbar sharks congregate in high numbers, especially near beaches on the island’s north shore. This doesn’t stop surfers, who flock to Velzyland Beach, the Leftovers Break and dozens of additional wave-beaten beaches where sharks search and swim.

3. Bolinas Beach, Calif.
Thanks in large part to Jaws, great white sharks inspire unparalleled fear when it comes to swimming in the ocean. At Bolinas Beach, a secluded town with a namesake beach that’s just north of San Francisco, 15-foot-long beasts and known to dwell under the waves where surfers play.

4. Beaches of Brevard County, Fla.
In the past 100 years, there have been 90 reported shark confrontations on beaches in this county on Florida’s east coast. Visitors head east from Orlando to the ocean to dip toes in the tepid waters at Cocoa Beach, Jetty Park and Klondike Beach, a 24-mile-long wilderness beach accessible only by foot in Canaveral National Seashore preserve.

5. Kahana, Maui
The deep blue water of Kahana Beach, near its namesake town on the west cost of Maui, is home to sea turtles, humpback whales and… tiger sharks. Laleh Mohajerani, executive director of the shark conservation organization Iemanya Oceanica, says the massive predators swim near the protective offshore reef that makes the beach a popular swimming spot.

6. West End, Grand Bahamas Island
Though it didn’t happen at a beach, the death of an Austrian lawyer who was diving with sharks in February off the Bahamas has focused attention on these tropical waters. Patric Douglas, owner of Shark Diver, an ocean guiding outfit in San Francisco, says they’re “among the shark-iest places on the planet.” He’s personally seen 14-foot-long tiger sharks off the beaches where millions of tourists swim and sunbathe each year.

7. Stinson Beach, Calif.
In the shadow of Marin County’s Mt. Tamalpais, great white sharks come to swim in the shallows of Stinson Beach. Patric Douglas has sighted them at this beach—which is a neighboring stretch of sand eastward of Bolinas Beach (also on this list, in the number three spot)—in less than 20 feet of water. “They’re coming to feed on seals, though it’s not uncommon for surfers to see them,” he says.

8. La Paz, Mexico
The International Shark Attack File reports three unprovoked attacks in the waters off Baja California Sur over the past decades. But the beaches of La Paz—a harbor city of 190,000 people—are relatively safe, despite the hammerheads and giant whale sharks that swim nearby. The latter is a filter feeder that’s the largest fish species on Earth, and a resident of these waters.

9. Long Beach Island, New Jersey
Peter Benchley’s original 1974 novel, “Jaws,” was inspired by incidents at this New Jersey beach in 1916. In an unprecedented 11 days, five major shark attacks took place along the Jersey Shore, four of which were fatal. Reports cited blood turning the water red and sharks following victims toward the beach. Today, shark sightings are rare, but the legend lives on in the surf and swells of these tepid Atlantic waters.

[source]

Volusia County chalked up its 16th shark bite of the year on Thursday just south of the jetty in New Smyrna Beach.

A surfer noticed a two-to three-foot shark in the water, and then felt it chomp down on his toe. Luckily, the bite only left him with a few small puncture wounds.

The last time Volusia County had this many shark bites was 2001 when there were 22 reported.

[source]

Aussie swimmers, watch your backs! Apparently some recent rainfall has stirred up the Gold Coast’s bull sharks and experts are warning people to be careful when swimming in the Nerang River and the Broadwater.

The combination of wet weather and the shark breeding season has created a potentially deadly risk to anyone entering Gold Coast waters…

[source]

A 12-year-old Orlando girl became Volusia County’s 13th shark bite victim of the year Monday.

Beachgoers said they could see the circular teeth marks on the young girl’s arm.

The girl and her family were staying in Daytona Beach for the Labor Day weekend and had just checked out of their hotel Monday. Her parents decided to spend a few more hours at the beach. She was swimming in waste deep water when the shark came out of nowhere.

There have been 13 bites in Volusia County so far this year and, while most are minor, some swimmers aren’t so lucky. A surfer near Ponce Inlet had his hand nearly bitten off by a shark at the end of August.

Still, Beach Patrol say shark bites are rare. Yeah right.

[source]

Part of New Smyrna Beach is becoming Central Florida’s most dangerous stretch of beach when it comes to sharks. Volusia County leads the state in shark bites and one small part of the beach is the worst of the worst.

So far in 2007, Volusia County has seen 12 shark bites. Ten of them have been just south of the Ponce Inlet jetty, including two over the weekend.

The area is known for two things. It has great waves, which attracts a lot of surfers, and it has a lot of fish, which attracts a lot of sharks. In fact, with the two bites this weekend, Volusia County has now tied its shark bite total for all of last year.

Looks like the sunshine state is the shark attack capital of the world. Last year, 23 people were attacked in Florida.

[source]

A shark bit the left hand of a 27-year-old man who was wading in the ocean near the New Smyrna Beach jetty Saturday.

The beachgoer is the 11th victim of a shark bite this year, and the third person to be nipped since last Sunday.

[source]

Two more victims were added to the list this weekend. One was a 19-year-old surfer, while the other was a 15-year-old girl. Both were attacked near Ponce Inlet Jetty at New Smyrna Beach this weekend.

The bites were minor, but they bring the total number of attacks up to eight for Volusia County.

[source]