Panama City Beach is known for its sugar-white sand beaches and clear, emerald waters of the Gulf of Mexico and St. Andrews Bay. For quite some time Panama City Beach has been a popular vacation destination. The city is also a very popular spring break destination, sometimes being referred to as “The Spring Break Capital of the World,” due to about 100,000+ college and high school students who arrive during the months of March and April. It is also the home to a diverse group of marine life and scenery.

This past week a Basking shark, the second largest shark on the planet, was witnessed by tourists and a kayaker in the heart of Panama City. It is a cosmopolitan species, found in all the world’s temperate oceans. It is a slow moving and generally harmless filter feeder, unlike the world’s largest predator the Great White shark. The extremely rare encounter with this slow moving vegetarian shark feed on plankton are usually found in temperate and Arctic waters. Sightings off Florida are very unusual. Presumably, the kayaker in the video was aware that the massive creature swimming toward him was a harmless basking shark, but the situation must have been unsettling nonetheless.

Check out the footage here! Basking shark in PCB