Yes! We saw a wild shark in Kuata Island, Fiji when we were there in May. I just realized that I have totally forgotten to tell you guys about it, so here we go! Okay, the shark might not look that frightening in the photo, but it doesn’t matter. I was still very excited about our meeting. I love seeing exotic animals (exotic for a Swede) in their natural environment without any influence from humans.

This was back in May when we were island hopping in Fiji. Our last island was Kuata Island, which is a relatively small island so the first we did was to dump off our bags and started exploring the island. How else would we find all the best spots? We quickly discovered a really nice part with a tiny secluded beach area that were surrounded by large round rocks that had been worn down by the sea. Palm trees were hanging over the beach and there were no traces of any humans. It was perfect and looked just like a castaway island!

So.. The (Crazy) Brit of this relationship wanted an Instagram-worthy photo of him climbing one of the palm trees, so he picked the best-looking tree and started climbing. He climbed the palm tree like a pro for about.. 1 second before he was plummeting towards towards the rocks beneath. He got covered in shallow cuts and were bleeding from most of them. The fall could easily have resulted in a far more serious injury.

After the initial shock (and surprise that oh yes, you can fall out of a tree if you’re not holding on properly), we sat in the water to let the saltwater work its magic with the wounds. We sat there for a while until we had a visitor- A wild Blacktip Reef Shark (or so Wikipedia tells me)! We were just joking minutes before that the blood might attract a shark and it sure did! It was only a baby shark and I guess that it hoped to find a dying fish instead of us. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. We were not in any danger because of the size of the shark and because we were so close to the shore.

We just stood up and walked back to the beach. We gave it some space, but I was also pretty curious about the shark. I mean, how often do you meet a shark in the wild? The shark didn’t really seem to know what to make of the situation either, so instead we were just circling around each other for a while (as I quickly ran to grab the camera) before it eventually swam away.

Have you ever had an interesting/memorable wildlife encounter?