“You have to use your snorkel,” Scott Smith tells me. “You need to be looking behind you when floating on the surface all the time,” he continues persistently. I’m questioning why he doesn’t think me freediving with the tiger sharks without a snorkel is a good idea. Scott elaborates: “I’ve watched a freediver being bitten by a tiger shark. We were standing on the stern watching him floating on the surface when the shark snuck up from behind him and bit down on his body – we thought, ‘that’s it for this guy, he’s about to be bitten in half. He’s a goner!’ But the shark only mouthed him gently; a few puncture holes in his wetsuit and not a single bit of his skin was broken.”
Scott’s story highlights, once again, those misperceptions people have of sharks having insatiable appetites for humans. Clearly that tiger shark was curious, and not having hands to investigate the freediver, it gently mouthed him instead, before deciding he wasn’t on its menu. Quite simply, if it wanted to eat him, it would have.
I’ve returned to shark lover’s paradise, Tiger Beach in the Bahamas, on another photographic expedition on board the Dolphin Dream owned by Scott. I’m here for two weeks, working on gathering images and footage for a new shark awareness video called Freediving with Sharks, and for my book project for the AfriOceans Conservation Alliance, the organization I founded and run. Freediving with the second most dangerous shark in world with nothing but my bikini made made me feel vulnerable, to say the least.
“…just a girl in a bikini with sharks all around her.” Photo: Mike Ellis
I did it because I felt that as a shark conservationist I need to walk my talk. I had to make myself as vulnerable as I possibly could to show people that sharks are not what they perceive them to be. I had already gone to all other extreme lengths in my pursuit of helping to raise awareness about the plight of sharks.
Where it all started for me was with at the Two Oceans Aquarium, where I met a very special shark named Maxine. Because of her, I designed a shark awareness program and shark research project. After she had spent nine years swimming around in circles, I influenced a decision to satellite tag her and release her back into the ocean. Maxine’s release was followed by the satellite tagging and releasing of the other sharks she shared the tank with, as well as the satellite tagging of wild sharks so we could compare their migration movements up our coast. I had also boarded a shark longline vessel and filmed and produced the award winning film ‘Sharks in Deep Trouble’, which showed sharks being finned alive, shocking people worldwide; I had created numerous campaigns including my Panda Award ‘Rethink the Shark’ campaign; I had created the AfriOceans Warriors Program, the largest environmental education program in South Africa, and I had even gone as far as to strip naked and tie myself up in shark nets for an anti-shark net poster campaign called ‘Catches Anything, Kills Everything’. I knew the images would be a powerful addition to my campaigning work – just a girl in a bikini with sharks all around her. But I confess, unlike all my other campaigns, this one put me out there and I was pretty nervous when I first got in. After all, I was about to test my own words, ‘sharks are not monster man-eaters.’
Having trained with Trevor Hutton, South Africa’s most accomplished freediver, and my partner, I can enjoy more bottom time with the sharks. I love the freedom only freediving brings. Tiger sharks’ sneaky behavior is very familiar to me: once, while photographing it, I made eye contact with a tiger shark that was sneaking up behind me. The eye contact caused it to turn away. Considering the high crime rate in South Africa, diving with the sharks is probably safer than sleeping in my own bed.
I don’t handle bait or feed sharks, and I do try to remember not to swim in the chum slick or down current. They are supreme predators, after all. But it’s hard to always remember the supreme predator bit; after my hours in the water with all kinds of shark species who have all been so gentle, it’s easy to forget that they have teeth, and big ones at that. Freediving with the majestic tigers of the sea is a true privilege. The warm water on my skin and just the air in my lungs, her and me side by side with lemon sharks surrounding us is something I’ll never forget. I know I will do this until the day I die. And if it’s God’s will that a shark takes me, I’d consider that the perfect way for me to go.
