A few weeks ago Victoria and I were swimming in the sea not far from our home. We were only in about six feet of water but we swam slap bang into a nurse shark.

I called to Victoria ‘shark’ and she set off in the other direction.

She has always been the sensible one. But she quickly overcame her initial reaction and we followed the shark for about a minute before it swam off.

The shark was about five and a half feet long. So a fair sized animal.

It was a lovely encounter but surprising given the depth of water, proximity to the shore and how close we were to a really packed beach.

Weeks passed and despite swimming near the same spot regularly we did not encounter the shark again. We chalked it up to luck and forgot about it. Until today.

The kids and I were swimming close to our usual spot. We had swum half a mile down the coast and were making our way back exploring as we went.

James called for me to look at something he had found. There in a hollow in the coral was what looked like a big bug. When I say big it was like a woodlouse but just under a foot long. I recognised it as a kind of lobster. As we looked at the odd creature we realised there were two of them.

They are called slipper lobsters they are very odd looking but a great find none the less.

Inspired by the find we were determined to see if we could find anymore lobsters or crabs. So we carried on searching as we were heading back towards the cove where we had entered the water.

We were only in a few feet of water, nearly back to the entrance of the cove looking in cracks and under corals for interesting things when Poppy suddenly called ‘shark‘.

Ducking below the surface I span in a circle expecting to see the creature. But nothing. I knew they could swim quickly, but not that quickly!

I surfaced and turned to Poppy a little confused. A little relieved. It is one thing me swimming with sharks but my 12 year old child. I do have some common sense.

I looked at Poppy. “Shark.”

“Eh, where?” Thinking she had imagined it and if she hadn’t quietly pleased it had gone.

She pointed to a completely unassuming lump of coral about eight foot long, six wide and six high the top only just below the surface right next to us.

I ducked under and looked again. Nothing. At the surface once more I looked at her quizzically again.

“It’s under that in a cave,” she clearly thought I was blind.

We ducked below the surface once again. This time together and she pointed. There at the base of the rock was a well hidden roundish hole maybe one and a half foot across. I stress the hole was really well hidden you could swim by it day in day out and never spot it.

I jumped. Sitting just back from the entrance was the head of a shark the same grey as the surrounding rock. Neatly camouflaged. I had not been expecting it to be so close! Right there! My heart pounded, not two feet away from my daughter was a shark!

They were literally face to face only a couple of hand spans apart!

The two of them were frozen in a tableau. I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. There was Poppy grinning and just in front of her nose a nurse shark. Sleeping. Or resting.

It was aware of us but not bothered, quite quiescent.

I calmed.

So there we were less than two feet from it and we were transfixed, by its gills opening and closing rhythmically. By its tiny blue eye that followed us, watched us and by it’s blunt squarish face and by how close we were to it.

I swam around to the back of the lump on a hunch and pushed down to the base of the rock. There under an outcropping lip was another hole and through it you could see clear under the rock. A narrow entranced tunnel running the length of the lump opening out to about four foot wide and in it lay Poppy’s shark. The tip of its tail inches away from my face.

What a beauty nearly six feet long and gently swishing her tail from time to time to hold herself in place as she slept.

Poppy and her shark were of a size and they could have easily fitted next to each other in that little cave!

The sharks’s cave while she is off hunting.

We spent about half an hour there diving down, holding our breath just watching the shark. Mesmerised by her. She was just serene. We were so close that we could have reached out and touched her on the nose or on her tail. We didn’t, we are not that far gone yet…yet.

While there we were joined by a large shoal of fish and a big very tough looking barracuda! In some ways a far more mean looking animal than the slumbering shark.

The amazing thing was her little cave is only about eighty feet from the seaward exit of our swimming cove.

Finally we decided to leave our new friend alone and followed the barracuda back towards our swimming cove… spotting a stingray as we went.

The cove was packed with swimmers enjoying an Easter Day dip, mums, dads little children all completely unaware of the big barracuda slipping between their legs or the shark sleeping only a stones throw away!

I also think I am becoming a bit obsessed with sharks and shark encounters. But you know what? So what.