Scuba Diving With Sharks in the Azores

My First Dive With Sharks

Being able to dive with sharks has always been one of my biggest dreams. These beautiful and powerful animals have fascinated me since I was very young. I have always felt a great admiration for them but at the same time a great respect.

Many of the people around me tell me that I am crazy and they ask me how I dare to dive with them. I always answer that everything we do not understand gives a sense of fear and that is why I want to show that sharks are not the murderous and evil creatures that everyone thinks.

It makes me feel sad that they have been labeled with a negative image and that they are being exterminated from the world’s oceans without any kind of control or respect.

Blue Shark Diving in Azores

I wanted to experience this first encounter with one of the most beautiful and curious sharks in existence: The blue shark (Prionace glauca). To do this I travelled to the island of Pico , the Azores where the possibility of diving with them in the sea is quite high.

The professionalism and safety of our guide and the fact that Tomas has nearly 10 years of experience diving with sharks, made me feel very safe from the first moment in the water.

In the initial briefing, our guide told us that when diving with sharks it is important to use both hood and gloves, and above all to be calm. Show the shark that you are not a prey and that you are there to respect them. If the shark crosses the line, remove it amicably with the hand over the area above the head, but at no time with sudden blows and never in the area of the gills.

After waiting a few hours on the boat we got our first glimpse of a shark. My heart was beating 100 per hour, I could not believe that at last my big dream was about to come true. When I got into

the water I looked around and there it was - an amazing blue shark about 3 meters long heading straight for me. In my mind I just repeated the words eye contact, eye contact. The look of that beautiful being left me speechless, made me feel the most special and lucky woman in the world. What beauty, what power. The shark was circling around us for about 50 minutes. At one time the shark touched my camera with its nose and at another time my body. It seemed like it liked to interact with us. The shark did not show any aggression and respected us because we respected it. For a moment I feel like it was a puppy who wanted to be petted.

For this dive I used my comfortable Mares apnea equipment. Wetsuit - Mares Pure Instinct 50 which is super flexible and so well insulated from the cold waters of the Atlantic. Long fins- Mares Razor Carbon are so effective and reactive when you swim in the sea against current.

In short this first encounter with the blue shark was an amazing experience and one that I would like to repeat as soon as possible. I am now addicted to sharks more than ever and I want to continue fighting for their conservation and show through my photographs that sharks are fascinating animals that we all have to protect.

Personally I love sharks and I wish people could understand them more.

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Text by Regina Malles Ekman | Photo credit: Tomas Jansson and Regina Malles Ekman