A diving expert narrowly avoided being chomped by a tiger shark just as she was preparing to enter the ocean off the coast of Haleiwa, Hawaii.
Cameras captured the dramatic moment marine researcher Ocean Ramsey was about to dive into murky, shark infested waters on Wednesday in the island of Oahu after spotting a shark bumping into plastic pollution.
Just as she’s ready to drop in to help, the diver takes one last look into the choppy waters, with her face coming inches away from Queen Nikki, one of the area’s most prominent tiger shark, the second-most dangerous sharks in the world.
Ramsey quickly pulls herself back on the boat as the apex predator pops out of the water, attempting to take a bite of the researcher’s flippers.
Rather than be startled, Ramsey laughs off the incident, quickly identifying the shark by name and continuing her dive to locate two other large, female sharks in the water.
‘I saw a shark bumping some floating plastic so I rushed in and this was my greeting,’ Ramsey joked about the encounter on Instagram.
Ramsey, CEO of the OneOcean Diving conservatory and education group, said Nikki, who she was worked with for years, likely didn’t mean to try and bite her.
‘I couldn’t see very far and I don’t think they could either, so I think [Nikki] was reacting more from my initial noise entering and shadow,’ Ramsey explained on social media.
‘I always love seeing their white belly coming up from the depths and in this case it’s what gave her position away so she was actually easier to spot coming up vertical compared to the others already near the surface.’
Ramsey said that it is rare to see sharks do this ‘spy hop,’ where the apex predators poke their heads out of the water to check the surface during murky conditions.
She noted that sharks are additionally attracted to cameras because of their electro-receptors, so Nikki, also known as Ali’i Nikole, was likely drawn to their boat filled with recording equipment.
The close encounter with Nikki comes during the North Pacific’s ‘Shark-tober’ season, where more of the predators are seen along the Pacific shores amid pupping and mating season.
The event typically coincides with more rain and swell activity, causing waters to grow murkier.
Ramsey said that as tiger sharks don’t have the best vision to begin with, the conditions causes them to swim closer to the surface, increasing the likelihood of a run in with the predators.
According to the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, there have been four shark attacks recorded this year, with two taking happening in September. The number of incidents are down by half compared to last year.
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