[Editor's note: The following post is written by Kydd Pollock, marine biologist for The Nature Conservancy in Hawai‘i. Kydd’s 2010 encounter with a reef shark is profiled in Discovery Channel's Shark Week segment, Shark Fight, which aired on August 15. This is the final post in a series about his encounter. Read the first and second posts.]

Since so few people are actually bitten by sharks each year (about 100 out of all seven billion of us), my encounter always sparks interest. And lots of questions. The first one I am usually asked is: “How can you go back in the water? Aren’t you scared?”

For me, getting back in the water was a given and is totally natural. I couldn’t wait to jump back in and fortunately I did, in just three weeks.

It’s not that I’m a macho tough guy. It’s that shark encounters are extremely rare. My experience in 2010 was an unusual one. And to be fair, one caused by humans operating in the natural home of sharks. The shark got caught up in our nets, and then out of fear lashed out at the nearest thing – a human, who happened to be me.

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