11/04/2024
Australia 2024: Echoes of a Legend — Great Whites & the Legacy of Rodney Fox
The cage descended slowly, guided by the dive master’s hand, until the light above faded and the water closed in. At 86 feet in the waters off North Neptune Island, the steel frame swayed gently with each pulse of the current. The cold seeped through my 7mm wet suit, settling into places you can’t fully insulate—along my spine, in my fingertips. Down here, time felt different—it was as if the sea itself absorbed time, stretching it out into something endless.
It had been 42 years since my first dive here with Rodney Fox. In 1982, Rodney wasn’t just a guide; he was already legend—a man who had survived a brutal encounter with a great white and turned that brush with death into a mission to understand and protect these apex predators. His wisdom shaped how I approached the ocean and these creatures, taught me to see them not as monsters, but as beings of immense power and grace.
Today, Rodney and his son Andrew weren’t with us on the boat, but the echo of his influence felt close. I knew we’d be sitting down together later that evening in Adelaide to share stories over dinner. But here, below the surface, the reunion was with the sea itself.
The cage came to rest on the seabed, groaning softly under the weight of the ocean above. Above us, the dive master scattered chum, letting the scent rise through the currents. It would drift out into the blue, like a question waiting for an answer. . Earlier, we had spent time in the shallows with the long-nose Australian fur seals—joyful, darting creatures that made the water feel alive. Their grace was almost childlike, and they greeted us with a joy that seemed to make the shallows brighter, warmer. They moved like children at play, full of exuberance. But here, below, the mood was different.
Kneeling at the open cage door, I positioned myself just above the seagrass. Around us, the Trevally swarmed—a living silver curtain, shifting and shimmering as they flashed through the water. They moved in tight circles, blocking my view, their bodies a blur of motion. I waited, my patience fraying, when a change came over the water—a sense that something large and ancient was approaching.
The Trevally parted like a veil, and the shark appeared, gliding into view with a calm that spoke of a different order of time. It moved with an ease that seemed to claim the water as its own. I raised my camera and pressed the shutter, capturing it just feet from the cage. Its immense form filled the frame, the great white shark, as if carved from the ocean itself—smooth, powerful, moving to some deep rhythm I could almost feel.
It circled back, slipping into the blue before emerging again, the Trevally closing in and then scattering, drawn to and away from the shark like moths to flame. It was as if the ocean was staging a dance, letting me glimpse the shark’s power for a moment before closing the curtain of fish once more.
Back on the boat, we gathered around the footage, still caught in the moment’s grip. We spoke in low voices, as if the dive demanded a kind of reverence. There was a quiet confidence in the shark’s movements, as though it knew these waters as its own long before we set foot here, its rhythm slow and unyielding, like the tide. It moved to the beat of something older than memory, something shaped by the pull of the moon and the drift of the earth beneath the sea.
That evening, at dinner, Rodney's stories wove through the room like the current, carrying us back to the early days of shark diving, when each encounter was an unknown. He spoke of his work on Jaws, how he had helped the world see these sharks not as mindless killers, but as animals with a role in the ocean’s ancient order.
Next year marks the 50th anniversary of Jaws, and Rodney and I are planning a special expedition to mark the occasion. There’s no one alive who has spent more time with great whites than Rodney Fox. To be at his side on this journey feels like coming full circle.
The day’s dive stayed with me as I lay in bed that night, the images playing through my mind. The great white circling the cage, the quiet exchange we had shared—it was all connected, part of a story much older than any of us. The ocean’s stories are never finished; they reach out through time, always urging us to listen, to dive back in, and to keep searching for the truths only the sea can tell.