I had just been certified as a scuba diver and where doing my first dive without the supervision of a dive instructor. My dive buddy and me where doing a drift dive along a reef slope with small holes in it. I was looking into each hole to try to find something lurking inside. After quite a while I finally saw something interesting. But what was it? I saw a tail sticking out and it was large, the thing that where hiding in there where huge, probably 2 meters (6 feet) long. This creature where lying on the small sand patch in the hole and it was watching me!
The tail of this creature looked as that of a tadpole (a very large tadpole) and the half with the head didn't really look like I thought sharks looked but was closer to a shark than anything else I could think of at the time. I had never seen anything like this before and was not sure of what it was. I knew for sure that sharks must swim to let water pass over its gills but this thing was lying still. It was very intriguing so my dive buddy and me swam closer. Soon we where almost within touching distance of this creature and it was not moving at all. Finally the shark moved slightly and I realized that the only way this fish could escape is through my buddy or me. So we swam away, afraid to disturb it and what it could do with us if we did.
Back in the dive shop we looked at posters of sharks and found out that we had seen a nurse shark (Nebrius ferrugineus) and that they are bottom feeders, they lie on the bottom during the day. Later I have learned that nurse sharks will never ever harm you unless you threaten it, but if you do they can bite you, and they do not let go.
© Stefan Sarin 2000, 2001, accessed