I worked with some SEALs during one of my Afghanistan deployments. One night, a SEAL told me a story about one of his swims in BUD/S. It was one of their long swims and after awhile, the class was spread out in the ocean off of Southern California.

The instructors were in boats and would usually drive from student to student offering “encouragement” and promises of comfort if they would quit on the spot. This time was different. The instructors in the boat seemed to be singling him out and following him, but oddly, they weren’t “encouraging” him or trying to get him to quit.

After awhile, they were still motoring along beside him. The odd behavior of his instructors was really unnerving him and he kept trying to think of what games they were playing on him. He was sure he wasn’t in last place and he was sure he was doing well so far… but still, the instructors were definitely shadowing him.

Finally, he crawled up onto the beach, and turned back to the surf, certain that the instructors would shout something derogatory about his performance during the swim. Instead, they remained silent, turned around and motored back out to sea to check on the other students still swimming.

Later that day, he saw one of the instructors who had been shadowing him. He asked why they had singled him out to mess with during the swim that morning. The instructor was initially confused, then it dawned on him what the student was asking.

The instructor responded that they weren’t messing with him. They were trying to put their boat between him and the Great White Shark that had been stalking him for the last two miles of the swim!

As a graduate of the Marine Combatant dive school at the Naval Diving and Salvage training (NDSTC) center in Panama city, Florida I can answer this for you from my perspective.

I have made many dives. Most were in the middle of the night in pitch black seas while following a compass reading at approximately 25 feet under the surface of the ocean with gear, swim buddies, and weapons. We would cover large distances under water finning away for hours at a time. We could stay under water at that depth for up to 4 hours at a time. We would exit a submarine, helocast out of a helicopter or just jump off a larger ship that had carried us to our insert site.

We utilized LAR 5 draegers which were oxygen rebreathers. In all my dives I never saw a shark or thought about them. I’m sure they saw me but we’re not natural pray to them and I can only imagine getting attacked by a shark is rarer then winning the lottery. I do remember crashing face first into a crab trap and scaring the shit out of myself.

To make a long story short the only sharks I have ever seen while underwater were nurse sharks and reef sharks. Both instances were while scuba diving recreationally in Utila Honduras and off of komodo island in Indonesia. The nurse sharks were bigger then me and gentle giants. The reef sharks were babies and fled whenever I approached.

Fyi during most dives I have a k bar strapped to my leg for emergencies however this is more for entanglements then battling with a great white.