Take careful note of the shark’s body language. A shark that is relaxed will swim slowly through the water. The more excited a shark becomes, the faster and more erratic its movements will become. An interesting observed behavior in many of the sharks I have dived with is the ‘pectoral twitch’ - as the shark swims past, it twitches one of its pectoral fins. Whether this is a sign of agression or intent I do not know, but I would appear to be some sign of challenge. Sharks can switch from being very relaxed to very intense in a matter of seconds. One sees this this with speared fish, where languid swimming sharks turn on and very quickly track down and devour the wounded fish.

Last updated on Jan 13, 2008 by Roger Horrocks