Tourist Dares to Float on Sea of Sharks Off Maldives

Nurse sharks may well be “harmless to humans” for the most part, but that reassurance (via National Geographic) probably still wouldn’t convince many to follow the lead of the woman seen in this video from the Maldives holiday resort Shadow Palm.

Taken in the ocean in the Vaavu Atoll area in Maldives and posted to Twitter on November 22, this drone footage shows the woman gently relaxing as a group of nurse sharks busy themselves in the waters around her.

Rizkhan Mohamed of Shadow Palm explains, “We snorkel with sharks as a tour. That certain day there were lot of sharks in the shallow ocean.”

The woman featured in the footage is a “random tourist,” as he put it, who “dared to float with them and then I took the video with my drone.”

University of Miami student Katarina Zarutskie was reportedly bitten by a nurse shark in June 2018 while striking a similar pose to that seen in this footage, while in the Bahamas. The Bahamas was the scene for another nurse shark attack the same year, this time an eight-year-old from Utah was bitten on the back. Credit: IG: shadowpalmmaldives via Storyful