idea of the Great White as a "Mindless Monster" eating machine, and changed the way the world viewed sharks. The Taylors felt that the Australian sharks may have a slightly different disposition to South African ones, but as it is now known that Great Whites swim between South Africa and Australia, this is open to debate. On two occasions many years before, they had released Great Whites trapped in wire ropes from cages without being harassed, despite touching the animals. Askew had encountered Great White Sharks several times previously over the years whilst spear-fishing. The first was in 1960, when meeting one was considered to mean certain death. This encounter was with a very gravid female who had come into a small cove to drop her pup/s. She was in such an advanced stage of pregnancy that her body was distorted, with her mouth actually facing forward above her hugely distended stomach. She was what is referred to as a "Drop-Gut". In the animal world a mother is usually very protective and aggressive just before and just after giving birth, and yet this large Apex Predator showed no aggression towards him. Because of this and similar encounters, and those of his colleagues, he became more interested in this question. Just before the dive, Askew and Ron Taylor were kneeling on the dive platform a few centimetres above water, with their hands in the water filming. Askew stood up and stepped back, and at that moment a four-metre Great White slid onto the platform and stopped 3 inches from his foot before sliding back, but made no attempt to snap or lunge at him. It would have taken his camera and arms, and maybe pulled him in if he had not got up. Askew sees that incident as pure opportunism and not savagery. The Prototype 'Pod" Valerie is seen wearing during this dive was a dummy for continuity and afforded the divers no protection. That first close encounter dive demonstrated that Great Whites are not built only to devour people but are very curious and can be quite 'friendly'. This dive is directly responsible for the upsurge in Shark Tourism – especially free-diving (i.e. Out of cage swimming) with big sharks. When existing and potential operators around the world learnt of the theory that the Great White was quite approachable and not likely to attack, it was hypothesised that the same