My Passion with Greg Parkinson: Getting up close and personal to conquer a fear of sharks

Greg Parkinson, managing director at Elevation recruitment, based in Rotherham, talks about his passion for swimming with sharks.

I DON’T really consider myself to be scared of many things, however sharks have been one of my greatest fears ever since I was a child. Water isn’t really something I like either so the mixture of the two would be at the top of my fear list.

I try and go to different countries and experience the various cultures, so when my friend, who lives out in South Africa, invited me to visit, I jumped at the chance.

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South Africa is of course well known for the largest and most dangerous predatory sharks, the Great White, so before I set off I thought about the idea of overcoming my fear of sharks and put myself into the deep end – so to speak – and actually swim with them.

Conquering this fear was something quite important to me and I thought that I must use this opportunity to defeat my ultimate dread.

So, a couple of days after arriving in South Africa, I booked myself onto a shark experience which would see me being submerged into a cage in the sea so I could get up close and personal with the sharks – or rather they could get up close and personal with me.

I didn’t really prepare myself proactively for this as a challenge but almost conditioned myself to not think about it because I knew that I would feel anxious, leading to a likely feeling of nausea.

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So when it came to the day I was surprisingly calm. I think I had subconsciously accepted my anxiety and wanted to overcome the challenge and conquer my fear once and for all.

The whole experience once I was in the cage was very scary, I don’t think I had fully weighed up the risks of the shark experience. The cage I was in didn’t appear to be the strongest structure, and looked a little past its’ sell by date.

Getting close to the sharks really was an amazing achievement for me and highly rewarding. The water was completely clear, which was great as I got to see two different Great Whites that were about 14 metres long.

The sheer size of them makes you realise they are clearly one of the world’s largest predators and understandably the most feared fish in the sea. It’s probably a cliché but the sharks didn’t look real. Something about the way they move and their dark eyes.

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Although being in the water with sharks is quite nerve wracking, it is a real privilege to see them in their own habitat and they are stunning creatures when you go see them up close. My day was made even better when on the way back from the shark swimming experience, the crew alerted us to a blue whale which was one of the most incredible creatures I’d ever seen.

I don’t really consider myself to be a massive thrill seeker, but I would take up another challenge as the feeling after knowing I’d achieved something like that was amazing.

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