A Kiama drone operator has told of his urgent efforts to raise the alarm after a shark made an unexpected appearance in his video, coming disturbingly close to unaware surfers

David Finlay had only owned his drone for about a week when he took it to Surf Beach on Monday morning, following reports the beach was closed due to a shark sighting. The creature could not be found and the beach re-opened soon afterwards.

A Kiama drone operator has told of his urgent efforts to raise the alarm after a shark made an unexpected appearance in his video. Credit:David Finlay

Mr Finlay returned to the beach about 5pm, only intending the test the capabilities of his new machine.

"I was just testing the image recognition, where you can get it to track a particular image. It was tracking a surfer in a dark wetsuit. It was almost flying itself at that point."