If I was a Great White... I'd probably bite you

But of course, the ONE day I decide NOT to bring my camera with me into the water, a shark swims right in front of me! It was really windy this morning, giving the water eerily low visibility. Nevertheless, we were on a mission to collect parrot fish poop (part of Maggie's graduate work that I volunteered to help with since I love to snorkel so much!). A word about collecting poop, in the water, from fish... parrot fish, mind you, who are ten times more aware of your proximity than any other fish on the reef ... let's just say it's slightly frustrating.


Back to my story ... the spot we anchored at was deeper than we usually snorkel in, but there were probably a million parrot fish, so it was perfect! So, I'm following this particularly large and colorful parrot fish, just waiting for him to relieve himself, when I look up just in time to see a black tip reef shark come out from behind a bommie, swim swiftly in front of me, and back into the curtain of suspended sediments. I was speechless, and somehow not nervous the whole time it was swimming by me. It was only when it disappeared that first, I was like "oh my gosh, that was so awesome!!!", and second found it much more difficult to focus on the parrot fish with the shark in mind.


Black tip reef sharks are sleek, relatively small (this one was about four feet), and aren't known to be aggressive. Eventually, I refocused on the parrot fish and was beginning to get both frustrated and cold. Just as I'm considering giving up and heading back to the boat, out of the corner of my eye, I see the black tip swimming at full speed in front of me! The shark was swimming so fast, it wasn't until I had turned a full 360 degrees while watching it that I noticed it was circling.  I was sure that the shark would not attack, but its behavior was enough to send me back to the boat thinking that if it had been a tiger or a great white, I'd have been toast!