Mitchell Casey Hewitt has been on thousands of dives in his lifetime but his most memorable dive happened on Thursday night near Lions Bay.
At 7 p.m., Hewitt, Steve LaRochelle and Olivia Devenish went to a dive spot off Kelvin Grove Beach & Marine Park and headed down 60 feet into the water in Howe Sound.
“We were all freaking out when we saw it,” says Hewitt.
The trio was looking for an East Pacific red octopus when a much larger species swam by them.
“It was eight or nine feet, swimming right by us: a juvenile bluntnose sixgill shark,” says Hewitt.
The group swam with the shark for 10 minutes and it even swam right towards the group and in between Hewitt’s legs.
"I had to actually push her off me because it was trying to dig in the sand between my legs,” he says. “That was an amazing experience.”
What made the moment so special for the group was being able to have that close of an encounter with the shark for so long.
“A once-in-a-lifetime experience to see a shark like that,” he says. “A really magical experience.”
Daniel Pauly, principal investigator of the University of British Columbia's (UBC) Sea Around Us initiative says the encounter while not rare, was a great moment for the diver.
“Usually they are afraid of us,” says Pauly.
Juvenile bluntnose six-gill sharks are known to swim in very shallow water. According to the DFO, the sharks become more abundant in shallow waters during summer months.
“There is a tendency for people to freak out about sharks for bad reasons,” he says. “The whole thing is actually silly because it’s just a fish.”
This type of fish is known to eat fish and bottom-of-the-ocean creatures such as crabs, squid, and octopus.
Hewitt works as a marine biologist but tries to dive every day.
“I’ve done dives all over the world and this is up there for me because of how magical that shark is,” he says. “I think this is a great opportunity to show people there is incredible life within the city limits.”
He hopes his encounter will inspire others to get into the water just 15 minutes from the city and explore.
