By now it must be clear why I’m such a huge fan of diving in Belize. On my first proper dive I nearly landed on top of a sleeping stingray while trying to achieve neutral buoyancy. On my second dive, I looked into the gaping maw of a barracuda. On my third trip into the sea, I got to shake fins with a beautiful Hawksbill turtle. On my fourth dive? Well, things got series. Our dive team happened upon a pair of rather curious reef sharks. If you had only seen my reaction when we encountered these beasts, you might have thought that they were 50-feet long and picking their teeth with diving fins; in reality, they were about eight feet in length, and every bit as sleepy as they were hungry. They swam around us for roughly 30 minutes, and would have carried on had we not run low on air. Our dive crew, led by PADI Instructor Dom Evans, showed us how to behave in the presence of these graceful underwater giants, while the rest of the team gave us a crash course in shark ecology and behavior. Not bad at all for certified dive number four. GoPro Hero3+ Silver | SPL Water Housings GP4 5″ Dome Port | Aperture f/2.8 | ISO-100 | Shutter 1/200 sec.

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The Shark’s Playground

By now it must be clear why I’m such a huge fan of diving in Belize. On my first proper dive I nearly landed on top of a sleeping stingray while trying to achieve neutral buoyancy. On my second dive, I looked into the gaping maw of a barracuda. On my third trip into the sea, I got to shake fins with a beautiful Hawksbill turtle. On my fourth dive? Well, things got series. Our dive team happened upon a pair of rather curious reef sharks. If you had only seen my reaction when we encountered these beasts, you might have thought that they were 50-feet long and picking their teeth with diving fins; in reality, they were about eight feet in length, and every bit as sleepy as they were hungry. They swam around us for roughly 30 minutes, and would have carried on had we not run low on air. Our dive crew, led by PADI Instructor Dom Evans, showed us how to behave in the presence of these graceful underwater giants, while the rest of the team gave us a crash course in shark ecology and behavior. Not bad at all for certified dive number four. GoPro Hero3+ Silver | SPL Water Housings GP4 5″ Dome Port | Aperture f/2.8 | ISO-100 | Shutter 1/200 sec.

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