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How My Second Shark Dive Experience Differed From The First...

How My Second Shark Dive Experience Differed From The First...

RE: "cageless shark diving"

Heather Restrepo's avatar
Heather Restrepo
Jun 15, 2025
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How My Second Shark Dive Experience Differed From The First...
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My interest first peaked back in 2018, while I was still living on island. “cageless shark diving” was a relatively new thing back then, gaining intrigue and discussion across Hawai’i.

My kids were very young at the time, my husband was also still serving, active duty military— and so the perceived risk didn’t feel like the right decision. Ultimately, after 11 years of the island being my home, I moved away… without experiencing a shark dive.

For those wondering, from 2008-2019, O’ahu was my home, and even with being in the ocean usually at least 6 days a week… I only ever saw a shark twice!


Fast forward some years later, I’ve been living on the mainland for a while and during casual conversation, my friend told me that she would 100% be down to go on a shark dive with me…

So, in 2022, I went on a girls trip, back to my former island home, mainly for the shark dive.

AND IT WAS LIFE-CHANGING!! (2022)

This was my initial response regarding my first shark dive experience, shared on my Instagram at the time:

And then after the trip, while answering some questions:

I shared many of my personal after-thoughts, via stories, photos, videos— and here are some of the responses that I received to those…


Ever since I first got out of the water on my first shark dive, I was non-stop thinking about when I could schedule another one.

Now fast forward to present day (2025)…

The stars didn’t align for my planning, until now! End of May, 2025. I was on a couple week family (and part business) trip back on O’ahu, and was able to schedule an early morning shark dive with (again) Ocean Ramsey’s One Ocean Diving.

YT short video from this dive: here


How this time was different…

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