🦈 What It’s Really Like Swimming with Tiger Sharks

People often imagine that swimming with tiger sharks is a heart-pounding, adrenaline-fueled rush — like stepping into a scene from a thriller movie.

But the truth? It’s not about chasing danger or proving bravery — it’s about respect, awareness, and understanding the rules of sharing water with a true apex predator.

If you understand the rules, they are very safe to swim with.

When you're in the water with a big predator like a tiger shark, respect, and awareness, are everything.

Tiger sharks are ambush predators by nature. Curious, confident, and sometimes mischivious—and they always deserve your full attention.

That’s why two golden rules apply:

1. Never Take Your Eyes Off Them

They know when you’re not looking. If you lose focus, they may test you by sneaking up behind you. Your job is to keep calm, stay alert, and they’ll typically swim away once they know you’re watching.

2. Always Maintain a Safety Bubble

A tiger shark should never be allowed to bump into you. That curious nudge can quickly go bad—what starts as exploratory bump can turn into a bite if boundaries aren’t set.

Use your presence, awareness, and, if needed, a gentle redirection to maintain that safe space.

If a shark does get too close, here’s where technique comes in:

How to Safely Push a Tiger Shark Away

If necessary, you never push a tiger shark by grabbing it’s nose or the underside of the head.
Instead, lay your palm flat on top of its head and gently guide it away.

Why should you not grab their face?

Because under their snouts are highly sensitive pores called the Ampullae of Lorenzini—tiny receptors that detect electrical signals. Touching that area can overstimulate them, causing a shark to reflexively open its mouth wide.

And if you don’t know what you’re doing, things can go wrong fast.

It’s the small details like this that separate a safe, awe-inspiring encounter from a risky one.

Diving with big sharks like tiger sharks isn’t about being fearless—it’s about respecting the animals, and understanding their behavior.

After 20+ years of diving with tiger sharks, I can tell you this:

If you follow these guideline, you’ll walk away with one of the most humbling, beautiful and unforgettable experiences of your life.

There’s a high you get that comes from swimming with tiger sharks that’s hard to put into words.

It’s not the kind of high that comes from adrenaline—it’s deeper than that. It’s the magic you feel when a 12-foot predator swims past you, just feet away, looking at you when it passes.

It’s the raw, almost spiritual feeling of being accepted—even if just for a moment—into their world.

You don’t forget those encounters. They leave you buzzing for days. They humble you, reshape you.

Leaving you changed forever.

💡 Want to Experience This for Yourself?

Join us on one of our upcoming expeditions to Tiger Beach and Bimini for safe, unforgettable encounters with tiger sharks and great hammerheads.

👉 View Trip Details & Availability Here

Shark Diving can contribute to Shark Science!

Tequila the tiger shark. Formerly known as New Girl.

There has always been a love-hate relationship between shark divers and shark researchers. Researchers have often been very vocal about their dislike for shark diving. Some researchers, not all.

Of course, many shark divers have also been critical (again, some—but not all) of shark research and the methods used.

I admit, I’ve been very vocal in the past about my issues with shark research. Though, as I’ve mentioned before, I do understand the value and necessity of some of it. On the flip side, some researchers have also been very vocal about me and what I do in the water—how I’m invasive, how I shouldn’t be touching sharks or feeding them, or how I’m “molesting” them. The criticism goes on and on.

That said, I absolutely respect legitimate shark researchers and the contributions they’ve made to shark conservation. I’ve even participated in tagging programs in the past. But I’m just too hands-on, too huggy and kissy with sharks to ever feel completely comfortable with that kind of work.

I know shark research is important. But there’s also so much more we can learn—beyond just hooking sharks, drawing blood, and taking measurements. There’s immense value in simply observing sharks, especially at dive sites like Tiger Beach.

These places are living laboratories: you can witness shark social structures, hierarchies, mating behaviors, healing processes, interspecies dynamics, and more.

So many stories. So much science. But as I’ve been told by researchers, because it’s a “non-natural” setting, it doesn’t count as real science.

Still, I finally got a chance to contribute in a way that made my point clear.

On December 2, 2014, I filmed one of our resident tiger sharks—Tequila—showing up with fresh mating scars. She had two chunks missing from her tail fin. I remember seeing her and thinking, “That’s not good.” She was clearly agitated and skittish, which is typical of a shark that’s recently been injured. She never came in close, and that was the only dive we saw her on during that trip.

Fast forward to October 12, 2015—less than a year later—Tequila showed up again, and to my amazement, she was completely healed. What’s more, the missing sections of her fin had grown back. I didn’t even know that was possible. (And yes, before anyone asks—it was definitely her. She has a distinct color pattern on her left side that makes her easily recognizable.)

This shows that some shark species are capable of not only healing but regenerating parts of their fins. While it’s widely known that sharks heal quickly, the idea that they can regrow damaged fin tissue is still relatively new. I had documented the whole thing in my journal—something I do for all the tiger sharks we encounter here—and I happened to catch it on video.

I shared the footage with the research community and asked if this was already known. Some aspects of it were, but for the most part, it was new information.

Now, this isn’t research that’s going to get published. It probably never will be. And that’s fine. What matters to me is that the footage sparked discussion within the researcher community. That, in itself, proves that shark diving sites like Tiger Beach can make real contributions to science—without needing to hook a single shark.

Maybe some researchers will still disagree with me on that… some, but hopefully not all.