Mr Reid said he and a friend heard about the whale and decided to have a look last Thursday afternoon. "I went in on the paddleboard at first and got a bit freaked out by the thing [the shark]; it stalked me all the way out there and all the way back in," he said. "So, I ... found a little ledge on the rock that I could stand on and put my hand in with the GoPro and have a bit of a look." Ben Reid takes shelter on a rock ledge near the whale carcass as sharks circle. Mr Reid saw three sharks - one big white, a juvenile white and what appeared to be a tiger - and said he was stalked by "the big guy".

"He came under my board and he was well bigger than my twelve-foot-six paddleboard, which scared the crap out of me," he said. "I only made it maybe three quarters of the way out to the whale carcass and then turned around and paddled back in." The whale's body became lodged on rocks near the beach on September 17. It has since broken free and washed onto the sand. A warning sign is seen on Monday in front of a large whale carcass that washed up on Wattamolla Beach, in the Royal National Park, south of Sydney. Credit:AAP The presence of the carcass has resulted in increased shark activity in the area and the NSW National Park and Wildlife Service has warned visitors to stay out of the water.

Asked why he chose to defy the warning, Mr Reid said: "I've always been on the water. I'm not really that scared of sharks. "I was really keen to see it up close, [then] all the things started swimming up underneath me and it scared the absolute crap out of me, to be honest, so I got out of there as quick as I could," he said. Welfare group ORRCA has said the whale was male but its species was yet to be confirmed. Ben Reid used his GoPro camera to capture sharks in a feeding frenzy around a whale’s body off Wattamolla Beach in the Royal National Park. Credit:Ben Reid A member of the group estimated the whale was 20 metres long, although no formal measurements have been taken.

Mr Reid described the sheer size of the animal and its presence as "pretty amazing". "It's the first time I've ever seen anything like that," he said. "I've always loved David Attenborough, growing up, and it was a bit of a David Attenborough experience firsthand. Ben Reid's photos show sharks feeding off the dead whale. Credit:Ben Reid "On the paddleboard, it was a bit hairy because you can't really see what was going on; I had my mate on the rock yelling at me, going, 'Get out, get out, it [a shark] is following ya.'

"Then I saw the shadow going under my board and I thought, 'Oh Jesus, maybe he's right' and paddled back in." From the safety of the rock ledge, Mr Reid filmed the experience as he stood in the water. "I was just leaning out as far as I could and he [the shark] could see me on the rock," he said. Loading "I think the big guy was defending his territory because every time I leant out over the rock and he'd have a bite, he'd come straight back in towards me just to say 'get out of the water' kind of thing and then take back off again - which was pretty bloody cool."

Mr Reid told how the biggest of the sharks, which he estimated was four metres, grabbed hold of the carcass and ripped chunks off it. "They must be bloody hard, whale skins, because the chunks that they were taking out weren't that big," he said. "It didn't look like much was coming off, it was just like a bit of skin and stuff coming off there and then there'd be bits of loose skin floating around in the water. "You can sort of see that in the footage, little bits of flesh floating past." The emergence of Mr Reid's videos came after two Sydney brothers filmed themselves swimming near the carcass at the weekend.

As visitors and thrill-seekers alike flock to the beach for a look at the carcass, authorities are working on how to get rid of it. Towing the dead whale back out to sea is one of a range of options being considered by the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage. However, the whale's size and the beach's location – more than 15 kilometres by car or boat from the nearest town – meant disposal options were limited, a spokesperson said. Illawarra Mercury with AAP