At the new year 1994-95 I traveled to Kuredu in the Maldives to take my scuba certificate and to see the wonderful creatures that inhabit the coral reefs. I had already seen coral reefs in Sri Lanka a few years earlier but they where right on the beach very close to some hotels and therefore not in a very good shape. So I had seen a few of the beautiful fishes that inhabit coral reefs and therefore had an idea on what I was going to see, but I had not expected to see a shark. I think I still though that sharks where deadly creatures of the deep but I do not really know what I though about shark because I had not expected to see any, I was in for a big surprise!
One day I went snorkeling just outside the bungalow, about 100 meters (300 feet) off the beach there was a big drop-off that went down so deep that I could not see the bottom. I was snorkeling just on the drop-off to try to see something big down deep but after about 1 hours I was getting tired and decided to swim back to the bungalow. At the drop-off it was about 3 meters (10 feet) deep and it became gradually shallower towards land. After swimming a bit I glanced ahead to make sure I was heading in the right direction and saw a shark!
It was between the beach and me, I realized that I could not swim out in the ocean to save my self it would surly out swim me, I had no chance of survival! But wait, the shark was not attacking, what was this? This shark did not behave like the great white sharks on discovery channel or Jaws. The shark was swimming parallel to the beach between me the safety of land, it was not more than 10-15 meter (30-45 feet) from me, surly keeping an eye on me all the time. It passed me and turned coming closer to the beach, it looked as if it was hunting, but was not going to eat me, if it wanted to eat me it would surely have done so already. All what I had read and heard of shark up until now was false, here I was in shark infested waters next to a shark that was ignoring me! What was this, did I smell that bad?? No, it must be something else ....
By now the shark had made one more turn coming further away from me and coming closer to shore, I was starting to realize that this shark was beautiful, and it was heading towards the beach so I started to swim closer to it. This continued for a few turns, the shark was swimming in an S curve towards land and the water was getting shallower and shallower. There was coral on the bottom and I had learned on the way out that coral is very sharp and that you should not touch it if you could help it. The surf made it very likely that I would land with my stomach pierced on the coral, but the shark was about my size and it was swimming like the surf was no problem in even shallower waters 15 meters closer to shore. I was very impressed but realized that I could not compete in swimming with this shark. I had to stand up and walk ashore.
I had lived through my first encounter with a shark, and I now realized that sharks where very beautiful creatures and not at all as dangerous as they often are described I the press. The shark I saw was probably a small black tipped reef shark (Carcharhinus melanopterus), probably 50-70 centimeters (about 2 feet) long (everything looks larger underwater, especially if it is a shark that is going to have you as a snack).
© Stefan Sarin 2000, 2001, accessed