Mike Stewart has had a close encounter with a Tiger shark at Hapuna Beach while diving with his family.
"The water was a bit murky because of the freshwater spring near there," says the bodyboarding champion.
Once we got out further on the point, things cleared up, and my daughter got some courage and jumped in and started diving around looking at all the fish and coral, so my son took over the inner tube."
"There was quite a bit of fish in the water, and it was really beautiful. I saw a few Papio and even a few Kahala swim nearby."
"As we ventured further around the point, I looked up and out of nowhere came face to face with a big Tiger shark."
Mike Stewart thought he was having a bad dream. He grabbed his wife and saw his kids diving around.
"I have to say I had some pretty awful visions quickly run through my head. I told them to get in, as calmly as I could, so they wouldn’t panic. My daughter just asked why, why".
"As I was trying to quickly figure out how to get everyone out of the water and onto some exposed lava rock nearby, my daughter screamed, 'Daddy, Daddy.' We got onto the reef OK, with the addition of some Wana spines in the foot".
There were two sharks, and they looked like they were cruising the point looking for turtles.
A recent report said that there were actually three in total. One was twelve foot, and the other two were 14-footers.
"The one thing I learned was that his shark could have easily eaten my family and me, and it didn’t. They don’t necessarily want to eat people and rarely do", Stewart concludes.