Back to completing chores now so cleaning the bottom of the boat along with the running gear, prop etc... is up on the schedule and a good thing to do before any long passage. It allows you to know for certain the condition of all the underwater bits and with a clean bottom you can attain the best possible speeds which is very important, given less time at sea lowers your exposure to potentially bad weather and a host of other problems. So out with all the compressor lines and dive stuff and cleaning and service tools, on with the wet suit and related stuff on hop in. The water is warm, well over 80 F and we never feel cold when swimming around the boat to cool off but I had a shorty wet suit on since I planned on being under the boat for a while. It is about 6 feet forward and 4 feet down to reach the propeller which is where I planned to start as usual. I had for the first time a perfect balance of weight to buoyancy and was able to just hang at that depth perfectly, able to adjust by taking deeper breaths to rise a tiny bit or less to sink a tiny bit, all perfect and warm and comfy. I gave the prop one spin to see how it was feathering and WHOOSH, a white flash 2 feet away moving from just near my face downward. What was that? I looked down and saw a grey shark spinning back to level cruise profile a few feet below me. He had done a belly roll dive, to swerve away from making contact at the very last possible second, I never saw it coming, Oh Ohhh, I think I soiled my wet suit! I locked my eyes on him, no way he was getting out of my sight. BUT, below him / her,/ whoever, I could clearly, like very clearly see, 3 more family members circling about 20 feet down, they were doing that shark thing! You know where they have their pec fins splayed way out and angled down a little bit like some sort of military weapon, tails and aft part of the body arrogantly swaying back and forth with a real sort of swaggering purpose to it all, but in a menacing kind of way. While this took all of say 3.9 seconds to unfold, in much less time than that, a fraction of that time probably, I was out of there. But it seemed like 2.75 lifetimes, sort of when you are running in a dream and no matter how hard you feel you are trying you simply can not move your legs enough to escape whatever it is that pursues you and it is just awful. That is how it felt, though I am certain I was giving it all I had in order to cover the 9 feet or so back to the surface and the safety of being back on board. There was even time to think along the way and even to glance down again but neither result of those two experiences are something I can repeat here. Flippers don't fail me now! I came out of the water like a trophy rainbow trout on a dry fly, flipping and kicking like mad to get up on the swim platform on the transom. I doubt I even touch it with my hands on the way out nor even stepped on the boarding ladder. Must have looked like flipper doing tricks at sea world. CRAP! There, safe for the moment, without taking the now fully fogged up mask off and still not having taken a breath since the whole nightmare began, I could still see them, cruising, circling directly below in what I could only describe as the "hunt pattern". Off with the mask and Gwen comes up the stairs sensing something is not quite right and says, "I though you were already in the water"? Ya RIGHT! Look down here at my new friends. "OHH" she says slowly, saying several paragraphs of quick thought in that one drawn out OHH. OK, so a dirty boat bottom must be something to be proud of so ours will be good and dirty from now on. I finally calmed down enough to call around the anchorage on the radio and ask the experienced divers of which there are more than a few what their opinion of these sharks was. In general the little black tips about 3 feet long or so were no problem, inquisitive but no problem due primarily to their size unless you were cleaning fish off the boat or spear fishing and had fish and blood in the water. Common sense I figured. The grey ones however were considered another matter altogether being somewhat more inquisitive and at times even a bit aggressive even though they were, I am guessing about 4 feet long or so. Reports of having to poke them with the spear gun to remind them to keep a bit of distance and to keep an eye on them were pretty comforting. So I hopped in the dinghy and went to talk with Heio, the local MAN who lives here with his mom, dad and two sisters, and knows all about life on the Atoll above and below the surface of the water. He said "noooo, they are friendly, nothing to worry about"!, and so on, such that it would appear it is not too high a risk. We have been totally relaxed about hoping in and swimming and diving off the boat at any time, never once concerned about anything at all and so is everyone else. There is always someone in the water if you glance around so maybe it is ok? I plan on having a few sips of courage and a long contemplation before I go back down there. Think I will tackle the little drip that has shown up recently from the hot water tank down in the nice safe engine room. That'll be a nice calm and simple job to knock off and it will give me time to relax and consider going back in the water.