A shark is an animal that resembles the power and strength of a beast with fearful abilities to sniff out a drop of blood from a mile away and know when you are in fear. Being in fear triggers the sharks senses to act aggressive and become in a attacking mode. When a person is in fear and panicked, then their heart will start to race, beating faster and faster. The beating of the heart can be heard underwater and the sensitivity of the sharks senses is a deadly skill.
There are many types of sharks in the world and most of them are animals capable of attacking a person by mistake or just out of curiosity. The sharks that are almost harmless to people are nurse sharks and reef sharks. Although most sharks have their own calm side, once they smell and taste the blood or meat of a carcass of a fish or anything considered as food, they will start to become aggressive. Once this happens, it is best to get out of the waters as quickly as possible before other sharks are attracted to the smell of blood and from the other sharks aggressive behavior.
It is like a chain reaction for sharks that go in packs, for example, the gray reef sharks. I have heard about these type of sharks from an experienced spearfisherman in the island of Saipan who told me that if you see a reef shark and it is in a group of three or four or more and they have their backs hunched up with their swimming behaviors changing a bit weird, it is best to get out of the water relaxed and calm without stirring up the waters too much.
I have had an encounter with a gray reef shark and a black tip shark that have come close enough for me to poke them with my speargun and they would not stop in doing so. This was about a month ago with my partner Kai Staal and Jake Van Dam. We were out spearing outside of the reef in Wing Beach. After about an hour and having caught a decent amount of fish, the gray reef shark about 6 feet long swam up to us (me especially because of the 8 pound trevalley that I just caught was spazzing out). The shark would not stop circling around until we finally left the vicinity of our hunting grounds.
For so long, sharks have been misunderstood by people all around the world who is only scared of what would happen on the negative side without considering the fact that most sharks are harmless and is only occurred that incidents of most sharks are made because people make the mistakes happen.
People who are scared of the water and sharks should really learn how to swim and get more comfortable around the waters in which we are surrounded in. This is something that will strengthen the mind and body of ones self accomplishing something of great importance in their life.