Terrifying GoPro footage shows moment great white shark 'nearly eats' diver

You know how it goes, one minute you're frolicking around in the water and the next a honking massive great white shark comes into view.

That's what happened to one man who took a dip in the sea off the coast of South Africa and had his dive interrupted by the second coming of Jaws.

He was a diver named Johan Potgieter and in footage captured on his GoPro he's seen diving down further beneath the surface of the sea with a harpoon clutched in his hand.

The man comes across some underwater rock formation which he starts examining and that's when our fishy friend (or foe) shows up, swimming right in front of Johan as you can hear him scream and jab his harpoon towards Poseidon's ultimate killing machine.

The shark then turns back towards him and Johan screams again before it veers away from his sharp point.

Check it out:

Following the rather sensible instinct to get the f**k out of shark-filled waters, the diver swims for the surface and in the footage can be heard yelling towards his boat: "White! White! Watch out for the white!"

Looking back beneath the surface of the sea was another panicky moment for Johan since he saw that the shark was swimming right below him.

Fortunately, he got over to the boat and managed to haul himself on board, telling the crew 'he nearly ate me' after going through an experience that must put the world's most powerful laxatives to shame.

GoPro reckon it's one of the scariest things anyone's ever captured with one of their cameras and it's not hard to see why given the guy had a great white shark swim right by him several times.

Since it took him by surprise, that shark could have taken a chomp out of Johan before he really knew what was happening - fortunately that's not how it went down.

That's genuinely terrifying (YouTube/GoPro)

He's not the only GoPro wielder to have a surprising shark encounter and get some footage of it.

When fisherman Scott Haraguchi was plying his trade off the Hawaiian coast, his kayak got rammed by a tiger shark.

The unlucky guy said he heard a 'whooshing' sound and then saw something on the side of his kayak which he initially thought might be a passing turtle.

Scott actually kicked the shark in the head as he braced for impact and ended up stomping on its face.

The fisherman reckoned that he'd seen a wounded seal nearby and the shark had mistaken his kayak for its prey.