Massive great white shark thrills divers in rare Hawaii encounter

Divers off Hawaii’s Kohala Coast on Thursday enjoyed a rare encounter with a great white shark that passed directly overhead and briefly inspected their boat.

The accompanying footage was posted to Instagram by Jessica Glazner, a marine biologist who wrote, “8,000-plus hours spent underwater led to this moment.”

Glazner also challenged followers to guess the size of the shark, based on the dive boat’s 35-foot length and 10-foot width.

Great white shark sightings are rare in Hawaii, but adult white sharks from California and Mexico seasonally migrate as far west as Hawaii.

Last week Michael Domeier, executive director of the Marine Conservation Science Center, posted the position of a tagged white shark named Tough Guy and Lono (Hawaiian) off Maui.

Domeier wrote: “Lono/Tough Guy is back. This is the 4th consecutive year we’ve tracked him from California to the state I call home: Hawaii.”

Tough Guy, tagged off Southern California as a 12-foot mature shark in 2021, has not revealed another tracking location since last week.

Thursday’s sighting occurred during an advanced deep-water reef dive with Liquid Cosmos Divers, owned and operated by Glazner, who described the encounter as a “once-in-a-lifetime moment.”

The captain of the vessel, Moonshine, was blasting “death metal” music at the time.