Sandra Northey, 52, encountered the placid creatures of the sea as part of American wildlife conservationist and award-winning photographer Jim Abernethy’s Scuba Adventures.

Ms Northey went out to sea for seven days on the guided tour early in the New Year.

She did four to five dives a day, swimming up close and personal with tiger sharks, lemon sharks, nurse sharks, bull sharks and hammerhead sharks.

“The tiger shark is the longest-growing shark in the world; they average about 4.5 metres to 5 metres,” she said.

“We’d see about seven or eight in a day.

“It was amazing to be that close to wild sharks but the tour operators have been doing it so long they’ve named them.”

The Wodonga conveyancing specialist said the tour had strict guidelines for behaviour around the sharks.

“We need to respect that they are wild animals,” she said.

“It’s one of the few places you can go to get really close to the sharks; no splashing was allowed and patting was not really encouraged.”

Ms Northey said sharks remained under threat at many places around the world.

“They have certainly become quite endangered; there are very few locations where they are protected,” she said.

“They’re getting killed in huge numbers for shark fin soup and the restaurant trade.

“People don’t realise they’re such an important part of the ecosystem; decimating them is detrimental to the ecosystem.

“If there was more understanding about shark behaviour it would help them more as a species.”

Belgian-born Ms Northey, who migrated to Australia aged seven and has lived on the Border for two decades, got her scuba diving licence as a teenager.

She had dived off the Great Barrier Reef and Fiji but never in The Bahamas.

“The sharks are such beautiful creatures,” she said.

Ms Northey has booked a base jumping course in Switzerland in late May.

She will skydive and hike over the coming weeks to prepare for the training.

“We’ll do 40-something jumps from bridges and cliffs over the 10-day course,” she said.

“People say it’s so dangerous, but they’re often the ones texting while driving!”