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WATCH: Paddleboarders Come Within Inches of Great White Shark

Photos from the encounter show two college students reacting with shock and horror as the ocean predator swims by.

Video footage shows the terrifying moment two college kids came within inches of one of the ocean’s most ferocious predators. Margaret Bowles, a student at Harvard University, and Maddie Cronin, who studies at the University of Toronto, were paddleboarding near a beach in New England when they saw a Great White Shark’s fin protruding from the nearby waves. Photos of the encounter show the exact moment Cronin appears to have spotted the sharp-toothed leviathan. “I see this big fin pop up next to her, it’s like 8 inches out of the water, sort of fleshy grey, and I’m like, ‘Oh my goodness, that’s a shark, we gotta go,” Bowles told local media outlet WCVB. “Fortunately we both kept our heads and made a hasty retreat to the shore on our paddleboards,” she added. Cronin went on to say she and her friend were entirely taken back by the encounter, and that the pair considered themselves lucky to have escaped. “I mean, a near miss is still a miss but we were certainly a bit surprised that we’d gotten such a close visit from a Great White Shark,” she said.