While much attention has been given to sharks hanging around south Orange County the past week after a shark attack at San Onofre State Beach, a video surfaced showing an up-close look at great whites lingering near shore in Long Beach.

The video was taken Tuesday by Ricky Birks, a 26-year-old from Huntington Beach, and friend Mike Del Grande, of Long Beach, who work for TowBoatUS Long Beach.

Birks said the sharks – about 13 of them – are 50 feet from the beach.

“If you walk into the water, you’re ankle deep and you’re right next to them,” he said.

He said the great white sharks liked the sound of the motor, and came to the boat and checked them out. They came up close to the GoPro they put in the water to get close up shots, with several sharks swimming over to it.

“It’s nothing like I’ve ever seen before. I spearfish and dive and scuba dive. I’ve seen sharks before, but not great whites,” said Birks. “Seeing a great white that close up, it’s kind of scary.”

The sharks weren’t aggressive, and several people were out stand-up paddleboarding and passed right through the group. He said about 6 or 7 of them jumped out of the water.

“It’s kind of nuts, it’s a little eerie,” he said. “They’re just cruising around feeding in the shallows, hopefully they can get what they need to get done and they can move on to the next spot.”

Birks said he’s working with California State Long Beach’s Shark Lab to help document the sharks.

Shark Lab director Chris Lowe said the sharks are believed to be the same ones that were living off Sunset Beach and Surfside two years ago. Lowe and his students are hoping to tag some of the sharks to learn more about them.

He said most of the sharks he spotted were about 6-feet in length and still considered juveniles.

The sharks are swimming about a mile stretch from the Alamitos Bay jetty, just on the other side of Seal Beach’s northern border.

After the tags are put on the sharks, the lab will get pings from about 120 acoustic receivers along the California coast, most of which span from the Ventura area down to San Onofre. The data takes a few months to download, but it offers insight into the shark’s movements, habits and migration patterns. The big challenge: finding funding for the increasingly heavy workload coming with influx of sharks.

“I have no funding to do this work. It’s so frustrating,” he said.

The sharks are believed to be attracted to “hot spots.” Following the attack, a group of about 9 were spotted near Poche Beach in Dana Point.

Long Beach resident Lance Jackson has been keeping tabs on the sharks near his home.

“My concern now is, being that there’s so many of them, is that someone is going to get hit around here,” he said. “I expect it to happen, to be honest with you.

We’re not alone, and we’re on someone else’s turf when we’re in the ocean.”

He’s a long-time surfer frequently found taking waves in Huntington Beach. Like others, he’s more worried about the influx of sharks being sighted close to shore.

“I think it re-enforces, you always have to use caution and be aware,” he said.