'I was just, like, pulling my board, and people were yelling, 'Get out the water, get out the water!'' one of the surfers, Nisi Schlanger, told NBC New York. 'I thought I was dead.' <br />The other surfer recalled: 'I just swam for my life right there, just dreading the moment the shark was gonna pull me in and suck me in.' <br />Beachgoers on Cape Cod were warned earlier this summer that a boom in shark activity could see as many as 150 Great Whites in the waters this year. <br />Nauset Beach in Orleans, Massachusetts closed on Monday after the attack, which terrified beachgoers who thought the trail of blood in the water was from a human. A pair of surfers were just feet away when the shark, believed to be a Great White, ripped into a seal. Screams pealed from the beach as the frantic surfers paddled for shore, a video shot at the beach shows,The Massachusetts Marine Fisheries said numbers have been climbing in recent years, with a regional population of 147 in 2016 - more than double the number, 68, in 2014. <br />Scientist Gregory Skomal, who started tracking shark numbers with a team at the MMF, said tagging research shows the sharks 'do come back each year', the Boston Herald reports. <br />'When you have overlap with humans, you do get the potential for these interactions, you know, a shark biting a person' Skomal said, before adding the killer fish aren't hunting humans - as was the case in Jaws, which was filmed in nearby Martha's Vineyard.
