Camels in Eygypt, horses in India, safari’s in Africa, sheep farms in Australia, Bungee jumps in Germany, parachuting in NewZealand, and hand gliding in Brasil, (after a very long lunch). I’m always ready for adventure. I’ve swum with dolphins, pigs, turtles, and who knows what else. But diving with tiger sharks was never on my bucket list. It was on my cousin’s yet somehow, I ended up on his trip.

These are wild animals, we were reminded, and one of the top three most dangerous sharks, reached by descending and ascending through a swarm of slightly smaller but rather more frantic nurse sharks, but I was assured it would all be very professionally handled. We’d be holding a piece of PVC piping to gently nudge the gigantic sharks away. A piece of pipe? That’s it?

Down we went amongst the most captivating, majestic, terrifying and beautiful creatures. Did I use the pipe? Yes, but what a rush to be on the bottom of the sea with these enormous beings.

Tiger sharks are considered to be “near threatened” with extinction as their numbers have steadily been reduced through targeted and accidental catch in fisheries. As with the black rhino, I am grateful to have spent a bit of time with them in the wild.

The whole adventure was quite something. I was hand-rubbingly enthralled by this bucket list item, no matter who it originally belonged to.