Swimming with sharks: How I discovered the shy king of the seas

Vandit Kalia is a diving professional and wildlife photographer. Writing in Times Evoke Inspire, Vandit discusses meeting

sharks

in the seas, the perfection of this species — and how shy a

shark

can be:
Many years ago, I was on a boat in the

Red Sea

,

Egypt

, travelling with divers and snorkellers. We were on the deck when a crew member suddenly called out ‘Shark!’ and pointed to the water. Immediately, all the divers jumped in. When we returned, the snorkellers were laughing, commenting that most people generally get out of the water when they hear the word ‘shark’.

But here’s the truth — sharks are actually shy creatures. Hierarchy in a shark’s world is based on size, not species. A diver with its fins and tank is typically larger than most sharks and they tend to give the unknown bigger creature a wide berth. Sharks are also intelligent beings — other than getting smaller (linked to the reduction in megafauna and prey sizes), sharks haven’t changed functionally in 90 million years. By comparison, 5.5 million years ago, mankind was a ‘proto-human’ and homo sapiens themselves are only 2,00,000 years old. In other words, when it comes to sharks (and crocodiles too, incidentally), nature has achieved perfection — it hasn’t needed to come up with a better evolutionary model. Sharks are the perfect species.

CHILLING OUT: The reef whitetip shark placidly rests through the day on the ocean bed and hunts at dusk. Photo Courtesy: Vandit Kalia

The first time I met a shark was in

Florida

in the 1990s. I was swimming along a reef when suddenly, two large bull sharks (about eight feet in length) passed by. At first, I felt nervous — then, I realised the sharks showed no interest in me other than seeing my presence as an oddity. This was their ocean and it was up to me, as a guest, to pay my respects to the kings. Just once, a larger shark made a threatening display, swimming at me with its fins down. I ‘conceded’ instantly by swimming the opposite way — that took care of it.

A REEF CASTLE: Juvenile fish use coral reefs for protection against predators like sharks. Photo Courtesy: Vandit Kalia

It takes one look at a shark traversing the sea gracefully to lose the fear instilled by movies like

Jaws

. Seeing a several-hundred-kilo shark gliding by effortlessly, using the slightest flick of its tail, is thrilling. It’s on par with seeing a tiger walking through a forest — there is a confidence these beings exude from being at the top of nature’s food chain. Sharks come in tremendous variety, from the well-known great white sharks to unusual hammerheads and goblins to dramatic wobbegongs and guitar sharks. I’ve visited Raja Ampat in

Indonesia

, where the confluence of the Indian and Pacific Oceans creates the world’s richest biodiversity. One of my aims was to photograph the wobbegong, a placid, bottom dwelling shark — some species, collectively called ‘carpet sharks’, live near the floor of the sea and hunt there due to abundant prey and the specialisation of their predatory techniques.

The wobbegong itself hides in reefs in the day and emerges to hunt at night. I was therefore expecting an intense quest, searching high and low for the elusive shark — but the wobbegong in fact made it laughably easy for me. Twenty minutes into my first dive, I saw one, with regular sightings thereafter. On the penultimate day, I met a shark sprawled regally atop a bed of coral, gifting me a wonderful composition to take home.

QUITE A GLANCE: Weedy scorpionfish living in the bottom of the sea have poisonous spines — and colours of camouflage. Photo Courtesy: Vandit Kalia

I met other amazing marine beings — reef sharks, manta rays (one ‘slapped’ me with its wings as it drifted by in a current, leaving me mesmerised by this peaceful, swaying plankton-eater) and a highly venomous blue-ringed octopus, all residents of Raja Ampat’s vibrantly colourful coral reefs. I ended the trip extremely happy at having shared this magical space in peace with the sharks. However, I don’t know how long we can have these wonderful experiences. Contrary to popular perception, sharks, even great white ones, don’t hunt or eat human beings. Most shark attacks on humans are accidental, with sharks mistaking a human for a seal or another prey species. However, humans are exterminating sharks at the rate of about a hundred million every year — for a slow breeding species, this is a precipitous decline into extinction. I request you to not use shark by-products and to exercise your rights as a consumer by politely encouraging businesses serving shark meat to stop doing so.

A RAY OF LIGHT: The swaying manta ray is often called ‘the ballerina of the seas’. Photo Courtesy: Vandit Kalia

Once you spend time in the waters, you’ll see most marine creatures, including sharks, are not interested in human beings. Stories presenting diving with sharks as a life-defying activity are simply sensationalised material. These are in fact beautiful, graceful and diffident creatures that are being hunted to extinction by human beings — changing our perception of sharks can go a long way towards saving nature’s perfect species.

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