We were in Southern California, filming for the Outdoor Channel—a series called Blue Water Savages (2015). I have never been a fan of sensational names for shark shows. Sadly, every TV show needs a name like that to grab an audience. I do hope that changes.
The goal of the episode? To test a long-standing myth about mako sharks—the belief that once a mako reaches a certain size, it becomes undiveable.
We already knew that young makos—the smaller, faster ones in the 3- to 6-foot range—are lightning-quick, bold, can be highly aggressive, but are very safe to dive with, if you follow the rules.
Juvenile mako. 1/200, f/10, ISO 800
What makes makos so interesting is, when most sharks try to bump divers or objects, they do it with their mouths closed—testing their surroundings.
Makos? They bump with mouths open.
They come in quick, sometimes biting cameras and ruining dome ports, (I’ve had my share ruined), as if everything in their world is meant to be tested teeth first.
So what happens when that same shark grows to 10, 11, 12 feet?
If a small mako is already unpredictable and high-energy, does a full-grown adult become impossible to dive with?
Our Mako. 1/250, f/5, ISO 800
That’s what we were there to find out.
To make this happen, we needed the best—someone who could take us straight to the land of the giants. So we hired the best captain on the planet for the job. Keith Poe.
And he delivered us an 11-foot mako shark.
I was the first one in the water, followed by our producer Robin Berg and my son David, who was both filming and acting as our safety diver.
I admit, my stomach was in knots when the shark approached me for the first time. I had no idea what it was going to do. She swam up to me, bumped my camera. I turned the camera slightly so she wouldn’t scratch my dome port. She bumped it, and then swam off.
She did test us a few more times, feeling us out, seeing how we’d react. She bumped our cameras a few more times, we redirected her, and she swam off slowly. No crazy speed racer swims.
She was so cool.
David with our mako. 1/250, f/5, ISO 800
There was no recklessness, no erratic lunges, no overly aggressive behavior. She was relaxed, confident, in total control of the interaction.
The caudal keel on this beauty… just massive! 1/250, f/5, ISO 800
A total dream shark.
This wasn’t the unhinged mad predator we had been warned about. She was elegant, calm and curious about us. She swam around the boat, not once trying to eat our tuna hang baits we had offered her.
Everything I thought I knew about big makos— their unpredictability, their reputation for being undiveable—was being rewritten in real time.
This was easily one of the greatest shark dives of my life!
I was in heaven.
We got some incredible video footage. Clips that showcased this shark in all her glory—her power, her beauty, her intelligence.
Sadly I have some major regrets… I wasn’t the photographer in 2015 that I am today.
I had the opportunity of a lifetime right in front of me, and I didn’t have the skills to do it justice. I took photos, but they weren’t great.
They weren’t what they could have been.
I was also pressured to only focus on capturing video by my producer, since we were filming a TV show. So the window I did have for shooting any stills was also very small.
I think about this day often. How I would of shot it differently now. How I would frame each pass, how I would adjust my settings, how I would maximize every second with her.
A shark that size is extremely rare due to overfishing, so the chances of encountering one again is hard to say.
I won’t say never, but a shark like this is extremely rare…
But that’s how it goes in wildlife photography. You don’t always get a second chance.
1/250, f/5, ISO 800
That mako did change something in me.
It wasn’t just about the dive—it was about the chase, the unknown, the willingness to put myself in the water with an animal that few had ever dived with at that size.
It was proof that so much of what we assume about wildlife is based on stories rather than experience. That the only way to truly know an animal is to be in its presence, to study its behavior firsthand, to learn directly from the source.
That mako also taught me the importance of always improving, and always be prepared for the next encounter. Because you never know when that next “dream animal” will appear—and when it does, you better be ready.
