As the boat rocks back and forth, I squirm into a wetsuit that smells like chum. Someone shoves me forward into the handles of the steel cage. I clasp hard, while a snorkel mask is forced over my eyes. “Go!” I scramble for one last breath. “Go!” Without thinking, I jump backwards into a freezing ocean with sharks swimming everywhere.

The handler screams “Down!”, and we rush underwater as a 13-foot Great White cruises by. I’m powerless. I’m in awe. Its eyes, black and dead, stare uninterestedly at the cage. Its fin, grey and mangled, flaps within a foot of the cage.

I splash up for air, while the boat rattles against the shaking cage, and the other divers are screaming. I try reaching for Michelle, but the handler screams again.

“Down left!”

I take a huge gulp of air, and jump underwater again. A large mass moves towards us through the murky water. The shark’s jaws are wide open, and it is swimming slowly towards the cage.

The handler moves the bait. And the shark veers right. We are safe. We are always safe. The shark isn’t interested in us. But that isn’t the point. It’s all about a feeling. An energy that rushes up the spine; the open ocean, helpless, submerged, inches from the jaws of a great beast, floating alongside the ocean’s greatest predator.