Diving With The Fearsome Five

Modern humans rarely get the chance to come face-to-face with a true apex predator — and zoos don't count. Divers, on the other hand, never know what might swim up out of the blue, especially when they travel to destinations where the biggest, baddest things in the ocean hang out. We're talking things at the top of the food chain that could eat you for dinner – but probably won't.

Intrepid adventurers have been known to get in the water with everything from polar bears and anacondas to leopard seals, giant squid and every species of shark. These adventures are beyond most of us, but there are some places where you can meet predators at the top of the food chain without putting yourself at great risk or spending months organizing an expedition. We've borrowed a page from the famous Big Five animals you'll see on African Safari and come up with our own list of the Fearsome Five that roam the waters of the world.

Seeing a great white shark in open water is an ultimate rush. In recent years, the most famous place to see real-life Jaws in action was near Mexico's Guadalupe Island. That area is now a reserve that's closed to diving, but there are other options. Great whites patrol the cool waters around California's Farallon Islands looking for a tasty meal of elephant seal. Several operators offer seasonal trips for cage diving. Prime season is late fall, and it's a 20-mile open ocean boat ride from San Francisco Bay, so this may not be for everyone. If you are willing to spend more time on an airplane, Caradonna can connect you with a great white encounter the waters of South Africa – and that's just one of the bucket-list adventures awaiting on an African dive and safari combination.

Diving with killer whales sounds risky, so let's call them orcas. By either name, these highly intelligent apex predators are an A-list encounter. If you are into cold water, Caradonna can connect you with one of the seasonal trips our friend Amos Nachom makes to the Norwegian fjords, but a more comfortable and easier option is a liveaboard trip on the Sea of Cortez when the annual mobula ray migration attracts hunting orcas. Another place where there's a good chance of seeing one or more orcas show up in the mix is on a liveaboard trip to swim with hammerhead sharks in the Cocos Islands.

Bull sharks usually make the Ten Most Dangerous lists, but much of the bad press comes from their habit of swiping at swimmers in murky water. For an encounter that's still thrilling but much lower on the danger index, divers can head to Mexico's Playa del Carmen between the months of November and March, where large female bulls gather on sandy seabeds just offshore. It's just one of the region's exciting dive adventures offered through Caradonna. Another top pick for a high-voltage bull shark encounter takes place in the waters of Fiji's Beqa Lagoon. Here, you'll not only be meeting face-to-face with big bull sharks, but you’ll be also surrounded by a swarming menagerie of grey reef sharks, silver tips, lemon sharks white tip and black tip sharks, giant groupers, Napoleon wrasse and more.

Tigers have a reputation for eating just about anything. Fortunately, that hardly ever includes humans, and tiger shark diving has become a big thing in the Bahamas. At the shallow shoal known as Tiger Beach, dive operators entice large females to come close for a fish shack, giving divers and photographers a chance for that once-in-a-lifetime moment. Half a world away in the waters of Tahiti, the site known as White Valley offers tiger shark encounters in warm, clear waters, and divers can also expect up to a half-dozen more sharks to show up, including grey reefs, white tips, lemons, black tip reef sharks and nurse sharks.

Getting in the water with a crocodile may seem like a bad idea, but not all crocs are the same. The only safe way to get in the water with the huge saltwater crocs of Northern Australia is in a cage. Expedition leaders organize trips to swim with Nile crocodiles in fresh water swamps, but the easiest and least-risky option for the rest of us is a trip to Cuba's Gardens of the Queens, where North American crocodiles share the shallows with divers and snorkelers.

At Caradonna Adventure’s our dive travel specialists can book these thrilling underwater experiences to any of these destinations mentioned. Email us at sales@caradonna.com or call 800-329-9989 to find out more about dive expeditions with these apex predators.