A holidaymaker had a lucky but terrifying escape after he was dragged out towards the deep sea by a great white shark.

Theodore Prinsloo, 47, was spear fishing on the coast of South Africa when he caught a 9kg musselcracker fish for the family barbecue.

He tethered his catch to a flotation buoy attached to his belt by a line, but before he could bring it in it was snatched by the 16ft predator.

As the shark swam off with Mr Prinsloo's catch, it began dragging him out to sea for about 160ft and appeared to pull him under the surface as people on the beach looked on in horror.

Rescuers raced to the scene at Salt River, a suburb of Cape Town, but they found only the buoy and the head of the speared fish about 650ft from shore.

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By then, however, exhausted Mr Prinsloo, who was wearing a wetsuit, had unhooked himself from his buoy line and made his way back to the beach, where he collapsed.

He then contacted the rescue service to let it know that he was the man it was looking for.

Mr Prinsloo, from Wellington, South Africa, told the service that he was dragged by the shark but was safe and uninjured.

He revealed that the shark swam close to him shortly before the incident, so he decided to stay close to the rocks.

He believed it was the same shark that he spotted in the area on Tuesday.

The holidaymaker was dragged by the shark about 20 minutes after catching the musselcracker.

After he lived to tell the tale, he went to a rescue station to retrieve his buoy and line.

Despite the incident, he returned to the sea on Thursday to hunt more musselcrackers.

The harrowing incident happened in the Nature's Valley holiday resort just after 10am local time on Wednesday.

Marc Rodgers, a station commander with the National Sea Rescue Institute, said: "NSRI Plettenberg Bay duty crew were activated following eyewitness reports of a spear fisherman engaged in a shark encounter at Nature's Valley.

"The eyewitness was confident that a shark had taken the spear fisherman and only his fishing floatation buoy remained on the sea surface about 200 metres off-shore of rocks at Salt River but there was no sign of the spear fisherman.

"The sea rescue craft Leonard Smith Rescuer was launched when the eyewitness noticed a fisherman on the shore in a wetsuit but uncertain if that was the same spear fisherman.

"On arrival on the scene a flotation buoy was recovered with only a head of a musselcracker fish attached."

Mr Rodgers said Mr Prinsloo, who was on holiday with his family, contacted NSRI after seeing the rescue boat in the water.

Mr Rodgers added: "Theodore explains that he spear fished [Tuesday] when according to fishermen that approached him they told him that an approximately five metre white shark lingered in the vicinity where he was fishing but Theodore had exited the water without incident.

"Today [Wednesday] he suspects that the same shark lingered in the vicinity where he was spear fishing, at one point swimming up close to him, he kept close to the rocks, and about 20 minutes after catching an approximately 8-9kg musselcracker that he hooked to a flotation buoy attached to his spear gun the shark grabbed the fish and made off out to sea dragging the buoy, and Theodore, with it.

"Theodore was able to release the flotation buoy after being dragged for a distance of about 50 metres towards deep sea and he quickly swum ashore.

"We recovered the buoy, line and the fish head onto our sea rescue craft and Theodore and his family came to fetch the buoy and line at our sea rescue base, Theodore saying that he needs the buoy to go spear fishing tomorrow [Thursday] and grateful that NSRI recovered his buoy."

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