When you think about swimming with sharks, what comes to mind?

Is it a calm video surrounded by tropical fish in clear water, with gentle nurse sharks floating around?

Is it a murky view from a cage while a great white attempts to gnaw through the bars?

Is it the stunning Wall of Sharks in Fakarava, French Polynesia?

The truth is, diving and swimming with sharks can be all of these experiences and more. It can bring you as close to danger beneath the waves as you can get while remaining safe, or it can be as gentle as the “Touch a Stingray” exhibit at your local aquarium. Okay, well, you probably aren’t going to be threatened by a great white, but everything else is possible!

Is Swimming with Sharks Safe?

First, let’s get right to answering the main question: is it even safe to swim with the sharks in the Caribbean?

In general, the answer is “mostly yes.” Anything you do out to sea and underwater has inherent dangers, and sharks are wild animals whose behavior can’t always be predicted, but the dangers of shark attacks are greatly exaggerated. Even the fiercest predator of the seas, the great white shark, is mostly just curious and generally docile. They’re just huge, and the only implement they have to interact with the world around them happens to be full of knives.

Truthfully, you have a greater risk of being struck by lightning, hit by a falling coconut, or just suffering a mishap on the boat ride out to the shark zone than you do having a problem with the sharks themselves.

A lot of people are afraid of sharks, and a lot of that feat can be traced directly back to the movie Jaws and the cultural impact it had. While these days it can be somewhat lambasted – Sharknado isn’t exactly a documentary – the fear that people feel for sharks is almost entirely unfounded.

Furthermore, in the Caribbean, you’re even less likely to be “attacked” by a shark than you are off the coast of California. Surfers in sunny SoCal are bitten by sharks more often than people diving to swim with them in the Caribbean. Even that is minimal. There’s a reason a shark attack tends to make the news, after all!

We put “attack” in quotes, as well, because shark bites aren’t generally attacks. It’s very rare for a shark to have any kind of willful desire to attack, eat, or kill a human being. Again, almost all of those kinds of attacks are either because the shark mistakes someone like a surfer on a board for a seal from below – as illustrated in this blog post – or because they’re just trying to figure out what you are.

In a way, sharks are like dogs; a dog is going to mouth and chew on anything they want to interact with because they don’t have hands to manipulate it. Sharks are even more limited, and the only way they can figure out what something is, is by putting it in their mouth.

And that’s just for the sharks that want to eat seals or figure out what you are! Many species of sharks exist, and a lot of them are not really interested in you because you’re too big to be prey. Some species of shark are basically just like any other docile fish, and some don’t even really have teeth at all.

So, yes, swimming with the sharks in the Caribbean is generally as safe as any underwater activity can possibly be. There’s always going to be some risk of drowning when you’re diving, and boats can be dangerous themselves in some ways, but the sharks themselves are the least of your worries.

Where Can You Swim with Sharks in the Caribbean?

The Caribbean is a large geographic region, and sharks can be found throughout the waters all around that region. That said, there are some areas where sharks of certain species are more common and where tours will bring you to dive in a group in a relatively controlled environment.

We say relatively because, when you’re out in open water, there are still many possible environmental factors beyond the control of anyone involved. But these are places where diving tours and tour guides have been coming for decades, so they have plenty of experience, and they know what they’re doing to both make sure you see the sharks and have a great time and do so safely.

Belize

Belize is perhaps one of the best places in the world to dive with docile, small, and entertaining little sharks. Nurse sharks are common, but if you venture out past the usual tourist areas, you might even be able to swim with the much more exotic hammerheads. If you’re a more experienced diver and you’re willing to book a special tour, you might also be able to see bull sharks, reef sharks, and whale sharks if they’re in season.

Belize is also a great tourist destination for other undersea life as well. Sea turtles are a common sight, and the many atolls and reefs scattered about the area are full of exotic sea life you normally only see in an aquarium.

Bahamas

The Bahamas, in addition to being an incredible tropical getaway on land, is also fantastic under the waves. There’s a spot called Tiger Beach where you can dive and see tiger sharks, though sadly, there are no big cat tigers on land to really make it awesome. You can, sometimes, see tiger sharks from the shore, though it’s not super common.

Taking tours further out from the Bahamas lets you see a bunch of different kinds of sharks, including lemon sharks, whitetip sharks, and reef sharks, and bull sharks out in the open water. Some of these are even large enough tours you can spend several days on a liveaboard boat for your adventure.

Tobago

Tobago is another excellent place to visit for a vacation, and some of the shark adventures you can experience here are unlike any others in the world.

It’s one of the few places where hammerhead sharks come close enough to shore that you don’t have to go to the deep ocean to see them, and you can even feed them if you go on the right kind of tour. Nurse sharks are everywhere, of course, and certain other dives can bring you to a range of other sharks.

Elsewhere

There are a bunch of other places throughout the Caribbean region that offer diving with sharks. You might not have quite as iconic an experience, or you might not have as clear water or as many sharks, but they’re also often cheaper and less crowded, so you’re more likely to get your chance to have the full adventure.

Some of the other locations include:

• Honduras. Specifically, Roatan Island is a great place with clear water and up to 65 foot visibility to see the sharks all over. Reef sharks are very common here, and shark feeding can be viewed by descending 70 feet to a gorgeous plateau underwater.
• Turks and Caicos. These islands are incredible for diving, and while they aren’t the #1 spot for sharks, they’re incredible in many other ways. Reef sharks are common, hammerheads are rare but not unheard of, and other sharks can be found depending on the season.
• Maya Riviera. Some of the areas in the Riviera Maya region of Mexico are full of sharks, including bull sharks, though dives are generally only possible in the winter months, unless you go out much further, to much riskier depths.

At the end of the day, there are so many sharks in so many places throughout the Caribbean region that you can go pretty much anywhere and find a shark tour to go on. Some areas are just better than others, that’s all.

What Sharks Can You Find in the Caribbean?

We’ve already mentioned the most common kinds of sharks you can see under the waves in the Caribbean, but are there other, more exotic sharks?

Here’s a rundown of what you can see in the area, though they vary by specific location.

Whale Sharks

Whale sharks are the gentle giants of the shark world. They’re large and beloved and endangered in our oceans. They’re an unusual shark species with whale-like basking behaviors and none of those huge, dangerous teeth you worry about with other kinds of sharks.

You can find whale sharks off the coast of Mexico, in Belize, and in Honduras, primarily. Cancun is a great spot to try, too.

Bull Sharks

Bull sharks are sort of like the brutish and ill-tempered cousin of the great white. They’re bulky and angsty and have a bit of a bad reputation, both because they can be difficult to encounter when you want to and because they’re probably the most dangerous shark in the region. Again, the actual danger of a shark encounter with a bull shark is relatively low. But, when you go on a diving tour to see bull sharks, you’re going to have more precautions in place to make sure you’re safe. They aren’t as even-tempered as some other sharks, and they certainly aren’t the more playful and gentle sharks you frequently see in viral social media videos.

Bull sharks are most commonly found in the Bahamas and off the coast of Mexico. In particular, the island of Bimini in the Bahamas has a baited cage dive with a ton of activity. Playa del Carmen is also a great option in the winter months, particularly in December and January when female bull sharks come in to deliver their young. Since the females are generally more docile than the males, and they come closer to shore, this is probably the best time to see them.

Nurse Sharks

Nurse sharks are extremely common throughout the Caribbean. Where you see one, you’ll probably see more, sometimes quite a few more. They’re smaller than other shark species, they’re slow, sedentary, and used to a gentle life on the seafloor. They’re also some of the easiest sharks to interact with.

While you can find nurse sharks pretty much anywhere, by far, the best place to see them is in French Cay, in Turks and Caicos, specifically during mating season. If you catch the timing right, you can see hundreds of them.

Tiger Sharks

Tiger sharks are one of the most iconically shark-shaped sharks out there, and with their subtly striped skin, they’re incredibly distinctive. They’re powerful predators, but they generally don’t care about humans and leave us well alone, as if we weren’t even there. It’s not uncommon for a tiger shark to swim within yards of divers without a care in the world.

Tiger sharks are fairly rare, so unfortunately, you might not be able to guarantee a sighting. Tiger Beach and the island of Bimini are two of the hotspots, but even then, you might not get to see them depending on when and where you go.

Reef Sharks

Reef sharks are a very common shark species found throughout the reefs around the Bahamas and Honduras specifically.

They’re on par with nurse sharks in terms of how readily you can find them, and some encounters set you up with a face-to-face experience with over a dozen of them.

Other Sharks

This is just a selection of the sharks you can find throughout the Caribbean region. Silky sharks, whitetips, hammerheads, lemon sharks, and more are all also spotted throughout the area. Book a trip anywhere in the Caribbean, and you can almost certainly find a local shark tour and can ask what you can see when you go out.

Don’t forget that there’s so much more beneath the waves to enjoy; you don’t need to stay fixated on the sharks. From reefs to tropical fish to stunning underwater vistas, there’s something for everyone as long as you’re willing to get wet. We’re sure you’ll love your Caribbean experience, whatever destination you choose!