Marty’s photo of the day #4723: My goal for last week’s off-coast Belize trip was to photograph a shark and a spotted eagle ray. I did both. I spotted this nurse shark after Deb and I ate lunch on a tiny island near the Great Blue Hole. We were several minutes ahead of the others, crossing a long dock to our boat, when two sharks swimming in the seagrass caught my eye. We hurried to the boat, where Carlos from the crew had also spotted the sharks.

“Grab your mask and fins!” he exclaimed.

Sporting huge smiles, the three of us jumped into the water and swam to the sharks. One of the sharks swam away, when Carlos got too close, but I was able to swim around this one to photograph it from the front. It was so cool!

The IUCN lists nurse sharks as a threatened species. They can reach 10 feet in length (the one I photographed was roughly 7 feet-long). And while not deadly to humans, they are ranked fourth in documented shark bites—mostly due to humans being stupid and touching them.