Bull Sharks (Carcharhinus leucas) and Black-tip Reef Sharks (Carcharhinus limbatus), Bahamas

I've been coming to the Bahamas for five years now, and until this trip, close encounters with bull sharks have eluded me. The guys have often been around in the past, but have never come in close enough for a decent shot. On this trip, we stopped at Walker's Cay and dropped into the water on the same murky beach where the illustrious "Dr." Erich Ritter had his calf ripped off by doing yoga and then wading around in shorts. In fact, we saw Erich Ritter there at the beach with a group of lucky snorkelers.

Two large bull sharks swam around us for a couple of hours, along with a couple of black-tip reef sharks and a really large nurse shark with old, wrinkled skin. One of the large bull sharks circled me repeatedly (at least six times, calmly), and it was really a pleasure to be able to see such a girthy shark up close for such a long time.

We also had at least five bull sharks hanging out while at one of the deeper reefs. They were always just further out than the tiger sharks and great hammerhead sharks, but were still a real presence in the water. While bull sharks on the bottom are usually moving around calmly, bulls in open water tend to come up the water column for a reason.