That’s me and a white tip shark. It fleeing the photo session.
JAWS may have been the first film I saw in a theatre. I wasn’t old enough to be there (it was PG 14), but I had my older sister’s identification.
Since then, sharks have been my favourite critters, along with koala bears, orangutans and clownfish.
So, you can imagine my glee when I got to scuba dive shark-infested waters near Sipadan Island in Malaysia in August 2015.
This is the closest I got.
The water was teeming with sharks – mostly white tip. Everywhere I looked, there were sharks swimming or resting in the sand. Even saw a school of six sharks swimming in formation.
But do ya think they’d lay still so I could get close and take a few pictures?
Nope. Bloody things. An inch too close and off they’d go. That’s the trouble with sharks.
While the world fears a shark getting too close, I’m pissed these sharks refused to allow me near!
There are hundreds of shark species. Some will kill you. I wouldn’t be so keen to get close to a great white, tiger and bull shark.
Nurse and white tips don’t have the same reputation for violence, but any shark will attack if threatened. So, incidentally, will barracudas, eels and trigger fish. Always mindful of that.
If I happen to die in a shark attack, please do not write “she died doing what she loved.” There’s no chance I’d love being devoured by a shark.
Here’s a gallery of the shark shots I managed to get at Sipadan.
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