A 49 year old surfer has died in a shark attack in Plettenberg Bay in South Africa, 500 km east of Cape Town.

Tim van Heerden, a resident of Plettenberg Bay, was surfing with a large group of surfers off Lookout Beach near to the mouth of the Keurbooms River, when he was attacked, according to a spokesperson for the National Sea Rescue Institute.

Fellow surfers pulled the man out of the water but he later died from his leg injuries where the shark, thought to be a small Great White shark - had bitten him.

This is the first fatal shark attack at Plettenberg Bay in 15 years. This month there have been two reported shark attacks in Russia and a fatal attack of a 30 year old honeymooner in the Seychelles.

Plettenberg Bay has long been a tourist hotspot. Originally christened “Bahia Formosa” (beautiful bay) by early Portuguese explorers, the Bay offers the visitor miles of golden beaches, a rocky peninsula, lagoons and estuaries, indigenous forests and unpolluted rivers and sea.