Two divers captured a jaw-dropping run in with a huge great white shark off Western Australian coast

Two divers have captured a jaw-dropping encounter with a huge 4m great white shark as it circled above them in Safety Bay.

A diver has captured the terrifying moment he had a jaw-dropping encounter with a huge great white shark that was circling around him in Safety Bay while his mate was inside a cave looking for crayfish.

Tim Ryan posted an eight minute video to YouTube after he went cray fishing with Andy Nelson off Coventry Reef about 55km south of Perth.

Just before the great white popped over, Mr Nelson swam into a cave to look for crayfish and remained in there for five minutes oblivious a 4m shark was swimming around his friend who was low on oxygen.

Mr Ryan waited for his mate outside the cave when the “bloody big shark” appeared.

Divers Tim Ryan and Andy Nelson manage to remain calm as the great white swims back and forth towards them. Picture: Supplied.

“Don, don, don, don literally and hilariously just popped straight into my head when I saw the shark pop out,” Mr Ryan said.

“Oh my god it is Jaws I thought and then a second later I was bloody scared, then a second after that I thought I have to deal with this and this is how I do it.

“I did my very best to to hold it down.”

Mr Ryan said there was five things you should do during a shark encounter and he did all five.

“So obviously you have to not splash or flap about and become attractive to the animal,” he said.

“You’ve got to maintain eye contact with it at all times or it will come and sneak up on you, you have to remain vertical in the water, then you have to keep your breathing and heart rate down.

“I think I did all those things.”

Diver Andy Nelson was looking for crayfish inside a cave oblivious to the fact a 4m great white shark had been circling his mate Tim Ryan for five minutes. Picture: Supplied.

Mr Ryan said the great white was only a couple of metres away and it swam so close to him he could have touched it.

“There were a number of times when it swam overhead, and also when it swam along side me I could have reached out and touched it,” he said.

“It circled me for a full five minutes, and oh my god, it came in and made passes at me for the full five minutes.

“It was only at the very end when Andy popped out of the cave, having a second person in the water scared it off.”

Mr Ryan said the swim back to the boat was “pretty awful” because they could no longer see the shark and his oxygen was extremely low.

Mr Nelson swam back to find the boat and found the way quickest way back, but Mr Ryan kept having to turn and around to see if he could see the shark after they lost sight of it in the water.

“Well that’s the point when the adrenalin levels went up a little bit because that’s their whole gig right, they go into the darkness and they sneak around and they come smashing up on you from behind,” Mr Ryan said.

“It’s the one you don’t see that you got to really worry about, especially when you definitely know there is one around.

“You just turn around and it’s coming at you at 20 knots, you know.”

The 4m great white shark swam close to the divers with Tim Ryan telling 9 News it was straight above him with its mouth open a little bit and close enough to touch. Picture: Supplied.

Mr Ryan said when they finally made it back to the boat the pair just laughed.

“It was all pretty exciting, you know, it took probably half an hour for us to get a heart rate and breathing rate back down,” he said.

“Andy at that stage had no idea that I had a full five minutes with the shark circling me, he was pretty amazed at the whole thing, we just shook our heads for a while.”

The video has been shared on the Diving Western Australia social media group with dozens of people commenting on the divers’ hair-raising moment.

Chuckie Walters said he had a similar experience with his son years ago, and the video brought back memories that made his blood run cold.

Laura Thompson said; “That is insanely cool, but I could feel my heart rate and respiratory rate rising just watching”.

“When you see it in real life your heart might go a bit faster than watching it in your phone … maybe a lot faster,” said Sebastian Laffont.

Sharky Jones said he learned from a solo snorkelling encounter in Florida with a big bull that it was so much scarier when the shark disappeared compared to when you could see them.

“At least that was my feeling watching at the end there,” he said.

Originally published as Two divers captured a jaw-dropping run in with a huge great white shark off Western Australian coast