Barry Skinstad banks left and angles down to around 14 meters below the crashing white froth. Suspended on the cappuccino like surface, I watch him begin the ritual scan for pelagic life, neck craning backwards, focused, intent. At that depth there is no sound, only contrasting shades of blue and black, the perfect environment for swift and silent ambush. Negatively buoyant, he drifts slowly deeper into the blue, until his shape blends with the black and I lose focus on his form. The unmistakable ‘thwok’ of expanding rubbers and the glisten of silver confirms he has speared a fish and I know its time to dive.

We are in Ponta Mamoli with a small team shooting a documentary on freediving with Zambezi sharks. Limited to one dive in the afternoon over a six day window, the pressure is on to capture the beauty of these animals in the wild. Our destination each day is the Pinnacles, a reef in 40 meters of water just south of Ponta Mamoli and some five kilometers out to sea, where the Zambezi’s are known congregate every year between November and April. It’s a classic Mozambique dive site, blue and deep and clean, the perfect setting for wide angle shots of sharks using ambient light.

Relaxing totally, I inhale and exhale slowly and gently, flushing CO2 from my bloodstream and oxygenating myself for a solid dive. As Barry ascends, our eyes flash connect and he nods confirmation of a sighting before breaking the surface and reentering the atmosphere. With eyes closed, I take one last powerful gulp of air and power myself into a deep free dive to rendezvous with the Zambezi Sharks of Mamoli.

In his classic book, ‘Survival – How to Prevail in Hostile Environments’, the French Physician and Adventurer Xavier Maniguet sets the scene for his chapter on the threat of sharks with the following caution: “We will neither excessively dramatize the dangers nor accept the assurances of armchair adventurers that sharks are not dangerous if one knows how to handle them. Claiming that one can sweet-talk such fearsome predators – which can grow to a length of 9 meters but have a brain that is hardly bigger than an orange – in a marine environment that is not man’s, is self deception of a dangerous kind.” After several pages, he concludes his discussion of shark anatomy, behaviour, and anti-shark equipment with the following claim: “Sharks usually search for an easy meal, and several hard blows on the nose can make them go away. The danger caused by their lack of intelligence is moderated by their lack of self confidence.” Nothing in my experience of diving with sharks would lead me to disagree with either of these observations.

Around 2 meters my ears demand to be cleared and I equalize my Eustachian tubes while squeezing my nose between the thumb and index finger of my left hand. At 10 meters I switch off the motors and glide to a holding depth of 20 meters, descending at a rate of 1 meter per second. With fins flared to prevent me sinking too deep I spin slowly around, scanning all quadrants of the liquid three dimensionality for the bulk and characteristic sideways movement that will signal the arrival of a shark.

Suddenly, she’s there. Slightly below and to my right, angling in for a sideways pass. Beautifully built, loaded with potential energy, remora sidewinders at the ready, she is hyped up by the distressed fish and clearly in hunting mode. I move forward and down, trying to get below her, testing her resolve, but she breaks left and swims away into alignment for a second orbit. I’m elated. We’ve got good visibility and light. Now to capture the interaction of freediver and shark on film and digital video.

Back on the surface Barry and I touch base. The speared fish has served as a dinner gong and the Zambezi’s are arriving in numbers. “Its pretty wild down there, no more spearing, they need to settle down” advises Barry. Trusting his judgment, I nod consent. We trade spearguns for camera’s, drift away from the boat, and switch into underwater photography mode. Composition, f-stops, aperture, subject to camera distance, the necessity of getting close. We are shooting wide angle, no strobe, so composition and ambient light are critical. All this while surrounded by ten to fifteen sharks, on a single breath of air.

The most important thing when free diving with sharks is to assume a position of confidence and control. Swim and fin with purpose and rhythm, and avoid erratic or frenzied movement. Engage the animal. Look it in the eye. As the shark approaches, display your confidence by maintaining your position or moving purposefully towards it. Never swim away or back off. Any form of submissive behaviour will simply increase the shark’s confidence and their appraisal of you as easy prey. As soon as you feel your confidence evaporate, start thinking about getting out. Like all predators, sharks have a knack for identifying and going after the easiest target.

I play it safe and elect to shoot on an Aperture Priority setting of F8, letting the cameras computer do the rest. With so many sharks in the water, I don’t want to have all my attention on the camera. Breath up, dive, Zambezi’s to my left and right, below and under, they are all over the place, still agitated, moving quite fast, every time you focus on one, another sneaking up behind, think there is a shot, get in close, compose, shoot, shoot, shoot, check your back, time to ascend, keep scanning all the way up, hell that shark came in close, break the surface, breath, eyes back down below, relax.

And so we dived and took photographs, while Mike filmed. After each dive we would review and critique the images, making mental notes as to the kind of shots we wanted to achieve and how to get them. We discussed the shark’s behaviour, noting how it was possible to get below the Zambezi’s if you went down fast and deep. Then on my seventh dive on the Pinnacles I had an encounter that underscored Maniguet’s caution never to deceive oneself about your ability to sweet talk a predator as potent as the Zambezi shark.

The current is pushing North to South and the sea feels alive with action. Sensing this, Barry and I eagerly suit up, bail overboard and start drifting towards the Pinnacle. As Barry descends, I see the first Zambezi appear below, a good sign. He spears a fish and instantly the Zambezi’s are all over it, like an Under Seven soccer team on the ball, quickly devouring it and speeding off out of sight. I start my dive, and can’t be more than 10 meters down when I catch sight of a Zambezi swimming straight towards me off the bottom, at a 45 degree angle. He’s coming at full speed, his stout body violently twitching from side to side, seriously agitated. Instinctively, I extend my Rob Allen rail-gun and line up on his fast approaching shape, not with any intent to shoot but to create a psychological barrier between the two of us. Still he comes, not slowing for a moment, eating up the distance between us, as my brain furiously tries to interpret his behaviour – is this a classic mock charge or is he coming in for real?

As my brain signals attack, I struggle for a split second with the dilemma of shooting an animal I have come to respect and revere. My preservation instincts win over , I tighten my grip on the trigger, and the Zambezi breaks left, centimeters from the tip of my spear, and bolts down and out of sight. Its an intense encounter, an undeniable reminder of the potential of attack that one must accept when you voluntarily dive with sharks.

Three months later we are off Umkomaas on the Natal South Coast free diving with Tiger Sharks. Scavengers by nature, these beautiful animals are bigger than Zambezi’s and appear more confident around human’s, coming in extremely close and slow to check us out. Despite the deteriorating visibility, we dive and take photographs, eventually taking turns to ride the dorsal fin of these astounding creatures, without any apparent annoyance on their part. Its a fitting end for our documentary, and we part company with a shared memory of what it is like to freedive with these awesome creatures in the wild.

Despite the best efforts of conservationists and scientists, sharks have relatively few friends. On one level, it’s easy to understand why. Of all the species on the planet, sharks symbolize the kind of end that people are psychologically geared to dread the most – being eaten alive by an animal way with massive jaws and sharp teeth and no mercy. The statistics cry out for such apathy to be challenged. Targeted by long liners, commercial and sport fisherman, shark populations are being fished hard in all the seas of the world, and it is conservatively estimated that around 100 million sharks are ‘harvested’ globally every year. Footage of fisherman on long liners pulling in sharks, cutting off their fins and then dumping them back in the sea still alive is as sickening as it is wasteful. On the flip side, an average of 10 people die each year from shark attack. So for every one person killed by a shark, 10 million sharks die at the hands of people. Hardly a defensible ratio.

I am new to the world of shark conservation, a recent convert with a passion for capturing their beauty and wonder on camera. I have yet to develop a clear position on the complexity of the conservation debate, but I am clear that sharks are in trouble and need all the help they can get. The images we have captured have been shot to highlight the beauty of these animals and highlight the marginal threat they present to human life. If you get the opportunity to dive with these animals, take it and judge for yourself whether they are worthy of protection or not. You will not be disappointed