In a heart-stopping encounter captured on camera, a free diver came face-to-face with a 3.5-metre great white shark in what experts have described as a classic “test bite” — an investigatory moment that very nearly ended in tragedy.
Callum Stewart, a 28-year-old engineer, was free diving just five metres below the surface off Wollongong’s Five Islands in New South Wales, Australia, when the massive predator struck. The dramatic incident occurred during a Saturday morning dive and was documented by fellow diver Mitchell Scanlan-Bloor, whose photographs have since revealed the terrifying proximity of the shark.
Stewart had only just entered the water when he felt what he initially believed was a seal bumping into him from behind. Turning around, he found himself staring directly at the great white. In an instant, the shark performed a full 180-degree turn and came back for a closer look.
“That’s probably the point I realised I might be in trouble,” Stewart recalled.
The diver froze as the shark loomed over him. In one of the most striking images from the encounter, Stewart is seen looking the animal “dead in the eye,” a moment he later described as both horrifying and strangely beautiful.
“The most amazing memory I have is looking this thing dead in the eye, and wondering if that was the last thing I’m going to see,” he told the Illawarra Mercury. “I was kind of caught up in the beauty of it. I realised later it had my fin in its mouth.”
The shark’s powerful jaws closed on one of Stewart’s metre-long fins, ripping it cleanly from his foot before the animal swam away. Remarkably, Stewart remained unscathed. He didn’t even feel the fin detach during the adrenaline-fueled moment.
His diving companion, Coralie Fleming, witnessed the attack and initially feared the worst. “It opened its massive mouth and as it’s closed its mouth it kind of ripped down as it went to swim away,” she said. “There was one metre [missing] off Callum’s body. I was horrified, then I realised it was just the fin.”
Fleming, whose boyfriend Mitchell Scanlan-Bloor captured the sequence, admitted she was left “shocked and upset” by the close call. Yet she also acknowledged the profound duality of the experience: “We’re just lucky that it was an investigatory bite and didn’t involve any missing limbs… It’s a really beautiful encounter with one of our most revered apex predators. It’s this really weird combination of being terrified, but also completely in awe.”
Dr Vic Peddemors, head shark researcher at the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, said the shark’s behaviour was consistent with a “test bite” — a non-aggressive way for the animal to assess whether the diver was potential prey. The presence of seals in the area likely increased the chances of such an encounter.
“I didn’t get the impression it came hurtling at Callum,” Dr Peddemors added. “If it had, it would have pushed him right out of the water with a shark of that size, and it wouldn’t have just been his fin that was missing.”
Callum Stewart walked away from the ordeal shocked but physically unharmed — a testament both to his composure in the face of extreme danger and to the often misunderstood nature of great white shark behaviour. The photographs by Mitchell Scanlan-Bloor serve as a powerful visual record of one diver’s extraordinary brush with one of the ocean’s most formidable predators.