Many adventurous backpackers have always dreamed of going dolphin swimming.
But when a traveling Brit dived with a pod of dolphins off the coast of New Zealand to tick another adventure off his bucket list, he received more than he bargained for.
A six-foot great white shark emerged nearby when Adam Walker, a swimmer from Nottingham, UK, was swimming with the creatures.
His encounter with the cold-blooded creature swimming under him came as he was finishing the 16-mile swim across Cook Strait.
“I happened to look down and saw a shark a few meters underneath me,” Adam said on his YouTube channel. “I tried not to panic as I have an objective to successfully swim across.”
Adam claims that as the shark approached, the dolphins surrounded him in a shielding ring to protect him from any potential attacks.
He told the Marlborough Express, “I’d like to think they were protecting me and guiding me home. This swim will stay with me forever.”
Dolphins typically defend one another against shark attacks by banding together in pods; the courageous animals usually harass the predator and drive it away.
It’s debatable if the dolphins intervened to protect Adam, but they undoubtedly managed to scare off the shark.
“I can’t say whether the dolphins came as a pod to my aid as they can’t speak to me, however, I can say that after a few minutes the shark disappeared and the dolphins stayed with me for another 50 mins which was an amazing experience,” said Adam
He said that his friend assured him that there were no sharks in the sea so close to the beach, which encouraged him to attempt to cross the strait, according to The Sun.
Adam said that the best course of action when coming across a shark is not to panic.
He had previously encountered sharks while swimming on two occasions, once in Hawaii and once in the Tsugaru channel in Japan.