Shark sighting at Pukehina Beach scares family out of the water

A Rotorua family were paddling knee-deep in the water at Pukehina Beach when they were joined by a couple of sharks.

The Thompson family were visiting friends for the day on Saturday at Pukehina and decided to go for a swim at the beach.

Heather Thompson said her children and husband were paddling in the water about knee-deep when they spotted two sharks swimming about 100m from them.

Thompson said they were distracted by a plane doing aerobatics in the sky before her daughter yelled: "Sharks, sharks!".

A Rotorua family spotted sharks in the water at Pukehina Beach. Photo / Supplied

"We thought there might have been about four of them but we're not 100 per cent," she said. "There were definitely two."

Thompson said the sharks were swimming where some fishermen had dropped their long line in and were catching snapper.

"We thought maybe they had come in for the scraps," she said.

The family went back to shore for some lunch and after a couple of hours, they had decided to go for another swim. "They were only in there for about a minute before they saw the sharks again, so we called them back in," Thompson said.

"So they [the sharks] were probably there for most of the day."

Maketu Coastguard's Shane Beech said it was not uncommon to see sharks in the water at this time of year.

"The water is reasonably warmso it isn't surprising if there were shark activity."