I'd rather be diving with sharks

I've faced many challenges throughout my career, but nothing compares to the challenge of capturing the beauty of our world's underwater environments. A photo seems like a primitive way to capture a three dimensional environment which is constantly shifting as light passes through the water column and collides with streaming schools of marine life. All photographers have to contend with light and sometimes uncooperating subjects, but rarely do they have to do so while floating.

Diving over the past 20 years has taken me all over the world to some pretty exotic places -- the kind of places you only read about in National Geographic or see in old World War II movie reels. I try to explain the extraordinary beauty beneath our oceans and lakes to friends but my words can't do it justice. The images I capture are a primitive representation of the real thing.

I was fortunate this past month to return to one of the most memorable places from my early diving career -- West End, Bahamas. This is an area of the Caribbean which still feels rather remote, likely because it's difficult to dive much of the year and very few boats venture out to this region. I first visited the Bahamas over 16 years ago as a passenger on the infamous Shearwater dive boat captained by Jim Abernathy. He was still in the early stages of developing shark diving expeditions featuring Tiger sharks, and I was was regaled with his stories of big shark encounters. I put this trip on my bucket list. Fast forward to 2019 and I found myself on a shark expedition and face-to-face with a Tiger shark for the first time.

They say there are really only three sharks you have to be worried about: Great Whites, Tigers, and Bulls. Which shark is the most dangerous is debatable (many people say bulls). If you see any one of these, it's probably a good idea to exercise extreme caution and get out of the water.

You never forget the first time you encounter a large Tiger shark. It rises slowly over the reef gliding effortlessly through the water. It's a beautiful and terrifying apex predator, a perfect killing machine. You notice that some of the smaller reef sharks in the area have slipped off into the blue. Suddenly you feel very alone and very exposed.

Whatever you have learned about sharks from movies is untrue. The reality is that Jaws always wins. If a Tiger shark wanted to take you out, it could do so in a nanosecond.

You can't outswim it. You can't outmaneuver it. You can't bonk it on the head or strategically wedge your knife inside it's gaping mouth. These sharks can swim like torpedos through the water. They eat turtles for dinner, and turtles have really hard shells. A Tiger shark would go through you like you go through jello.

I've gone diving with hundreds of sharks throughout my career and none of them have ever tried to attack me. I've been surrounded by dozens of sharks while diving both in the daytime and at night. If they were truly interested in an easy human meal, I wouldn't be here today. I have the utmost respect for these animals and the role they play in the underwater ecosystem. They need our protection.

I still have plenty of places left on my diving bucket list -- Indonesia (where I'm headed next year), Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Isla Mujeres for whale sharks, British Columbia, California kelp forests, and the list goes on. In another life I would have been a professional underwater photographer and adventurer. Fortunately this life allows me to pretend I'm one at least once a year!

^^^ The camera angle is distorting the relative size of the diver and Tiger shark in this photo. But I like how it makes this woman look fearless as she stares down the shark with her small point-and-shoot camera.