markmantei
Contributor
I can understand where you are coming from, in every sense, at least for me, it is kind of a phobia. I want to see sharks, I have seen sharks (large reef sharks, I think, on a night dive on GBR, nurse sharks in PDC and Coz). Knowing the shark and their behaviour can help, the nurse sharks didn't bother me at all, even had a cuddly one on our last dive in Coz. The GBR reef sharks were much larger, and circling coming in and out of the light zone under the boat, don't know if they followed on the dive, what I do know is that dives was more unnervinig. I am very disappointed that I called a dive due to an ear issue, where several large bull sharks circled the rest of the divers for most of the dive (this was not a planned shark dive, and I was not aware of the sharks when I called the dive), my wife was lucky enough to be on that dive, although I can imagine her semi freaking grabbing the DM's hand the entire dive.
At least for me the issue is control. On any given dive I feel very much in control of myself and my safety. When large sharks come around you are basically trusting them with your are safety (at least in my estimation). If they wanted to give you a bad day they could, and theres not a whole lot you could do about it. Now I know that there are behavious that we can exhibit that can cause issues, and that they are not there to give you that bad day, but its not entirely a logical issue you can think through. I have control issues and I don't like it when I am not in control. I know that, I don't like being a passenger in a car, or in an aircraft for the same reasons, not that I think there will be an accident each time those events occur either.
In short, I don't know that anyone can post or even tell you something that will convince you that it will all be ok, although I can join the chorus of people saying it will be fine. Eventually if you do enough dives in locale's with sharks, you will run into them. Just focus on being as relaxed as you can. Yes you will be nervous and that's OK. The more you dive with the sharks, the more comfortable I'm sure you will become.
Good luck. Have fun and dive safe.
At least for me the issue is control. On any given dive I feel very much in control of myself and my safety. When large sharks come around you are basically trusting them with your are safety (at least in my estimation). If they wanted to give you a bad day they could, and theres not a whole lot you could do about it. Now I know that there are behavious that we can exhibit that can cause issues, and that they are not there to give you that bad day, but its not entirely a logical issue you can think through. I have control issues and I don't like it when I am not in control. I know that, I don't like being a passenger in a car, or in an aircraft for the same reasons, not that I think there will be an accident each time those events occur either.
In short, I don't know that anyone can post or even tell you something that will convince you that it will all be ok, although I can join the chorus of people saying it will be fine. Eventually if you do enough dives in locale's with sharks, you will run into them. Just focus on being as relaxed as you can. Yes you will be nervous and that's OK. The more you dive with the sharks, the more comfortable I'm sure you will become.
Good luck. Have fun and dive safe.