A body boarder has spoken of how a four-metre great white shark knocked him off his board and into the air.

Paul Goff, 48, was swimming in just two metres of water south of Perth when the beast struck on Sunday morning.

'It was like a broad punch to the bottom of the board. I saw nothing before I got hit,' he told 7News.

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Paul Goff has lived to tell the tale of how a four-metre great white shark knocked his board

This is the moment the body boarder, 48, scrambled to shore after the shark encounter

The moment Mr Goff scrambled to shore and collapsed on the sand after being knocked off his board has been captured on video.

He is visibly shaken after surviving an encounter with a four-metre long great white shark near the town of Bunbury in Western Australia.

'Oh my god. That was the biggest thing I've ever f***ing seen,' he said.

Afterwards, the body boarder spoke of how the shark had knocked him from his board just 50 metres from the shore at Casuarina Point.

'I had a hit from under the board that knocked me up into the air and sent my body back towards the beach,' he said.

'The board went towards the ocean. The shark came up between me and the board and then went towards the board, so it was coming forward like that.

'It's at that point that I saw its gills.'

Three dolphins may have saved his life by scaring away the enormous great white shark.

The boarder was out on the water when he the maneater headed straight towards him and took a chunk from his board shortly before 9am.

Three dolphins may have saved the life of a man by scaring away an enormous great white shark after it attacked him while bodyboarding at a beach at Bunbury, in Western Australia

The man noticed the four-metre-long maneater swimming straight towards him, before it hit and knocked him from his board. Languishing in the water he managed to swim safely to shore

Left languishing in the water with the shark nearby, he frantically managed to swim the 50 metres back to the beach.

A police spokesman told the ABC that the three aquatic mammals then scared off the shark.

Despite being shaken by the close encounter, he was able to raise the alarm and warn other swimmers in the area.

The beach and nearby Hungry Hollow were both closed, a spokesman for Surf Life Saving WA told Australian Associated Press.

Some 20 others nearby were forced to the clear out of the water, with beaches due to reopen in the mid-afternoon.

A St John Ambulance spokesman said the man had been treated for shock but was not injured and did not need to be brought to hospital.