I've never been unduly afraid of large animals. I grew up in the Rocky Mountains and spent a lot of time in the bush-bush and learned early on how to deal with it.
I did, however, have one experience with a shark that freaked me out a bit.
I was with a group of divers diving from a zodiac along a deep offshore reef in Egypt that was known for having several species of sharks around, including Oceanic Whitetips.
The dive was a drift dive and there was a fair amount of current on the surface. We rolled off the zodiac and made a negative entry, my buddy had a mask issue and she remained on the surface to sort it out.
I went down to 5 metres and just hung under her waiting. Meanwhile we had drifted a bit off the reef and I couldn't see it anymore. An alert diver saw this happening and positioned himself such that he could see us AND the reef so we would know which way to swim.
Once she got her mask back on and decended to where I was and we started swimming toward the diver who was between us and the reef I suddenly saw something move on the other side of my buddy.
I peeked around her and out of the blue came a fully grown Oceanic Whitetip. I think it was about 3 metres long.... The biggest one I had ever seen...... pectoral fins down swimming straight at us at high speed.
My first reaction was "WOW, that's a BIG Shark!"
and my second thought was "AND WE'RE FLOATING OUT HERE IN MIDDLE OF NOWHERE!!!"
There was nothing to do about it except keep swimming but MAN was I happy when we got to the reef and that shark left.
Just the way he came out of the blue like that with those pectoral fins down and with that speed... it was like he was just *radiating* intent to get nasty. I found it pretty darned freaky even though I'm not ordinarily someone who gets freaked out easily.
R..
I did, however, have one experience with a shark that freaked me out a bit.
I was with a group of divers diving from a zodiac along a deep offshore reef in Egypt that was known for having several species of sharks around, including Oceanic Whitetips.
The dive was a drift dive and there was a fair amount of current on the surface. We rolled off the zodiac and made a negative entry, my buddy had a mask issue and she remained on the surface to sort it out.
I went down to 5 metres and just hung under her waiting. Meanwhile we had drifted a bit off the reef and I couldn't see it anymore. An alert diver saw this happening and positioned himself such that he could see us AND the reef so we would know which way to swim.
Once she got her mask back on and decended to where I was and we started swimming toward the diver who was between us and the reef I suddenly saw something move on the other side of my buddy.
I peeked around her and out of the blue came a fully grown Oceanic Whitetip. I think it was about 3 metres long.... The biggest one I had ever seen...... pectoral fins down swimming straight at us at high speed.
My first reaction was "WOW, that's a BIG Shark!"
and my second thought was "AND WE'RE FLOATING OUT HERE IN MIDDLE OF NOWHERE!!!"
There was nothing to do about it except keep swimming but MAN was I happy when we got to the reef and that shark left.
Just the way he came out of the blue like that with those pectoral fins down and with that speed... it was like he was just *radiating* intent to get nasty. I found it pretty darned freaky even though I'm not ordinarily someone who gets freaked out easily.
R..
