The last golden rays of sun brushed the sea almost parallel to the surface, endowing the moment with a certain mysticism. On board our boat, a Shark Med volunteer and I were already close to the scientific station that we had installed when we spotted what we had been looking for. Almost in unison, we both yelled, “shark!” My heart began to beat frantically, excited at the idea of finally being able to swim with a blue shark in the Mediterranean, the sea in which I had been raised. Like most children born on my home island of Mallorca, I had learned to snorkel at an early age and had spent half my life underwater. However, I would never have imagined being able to swim with a shark on that same coast.

I then remembered the first time I dived with sharks, ten years before, on a remote island in the Pacific, thousands of kilometres from the Balearics. As part of my work as a professional photographer and cameraman, between 2009 and 2015 I was visiting various Pacific islands to film a series of documentaries about the work of Dr Eric Clua. I have been linked to him since childhood by a strong friendship that emerged from our common passion for the sea. Eric, a veterinarian and marine biologist, has spent the last 20 years studying sharks, becoming one of the most reputable experts in the world. For someone interested in these animals, the Pacific Ocean, where Eric spends much of the year working, is a paradise. Thanks to the didactic explanations of my friend, I was able to quickly overcome the irrational fear that most of us feel towards these animals, often caused by the unfounded bad reputation that the media has created for them. I spent many hours with Eric diving in the Pacific with large tiger and bull sharks. It was a beautiful experience. In our spare time we imagined how our beloved Mediterranean Sea must have been in the past, when its waters were rich and all kinds of species abounded, including sharks.