When WA abalone diver Marc Payne spotted a four-metre great white shark heading straight for him, he lay on the sea bed, just metres from the protection of his shark cage, and prayed it would swim past him.
"It came right for me and had a look," he told WAtoday.
Fortunately the shark swam on, but it was not the first time Mr Payne had encountered the predator of the sea and was likely not to be the last.
The 49-year-old has been commercially diving off WA's south coast for 27 years.
During that time, he has lost a colleague to a shark attack, and himself been forced to use his motorised cage to charge at a large white shark circling him and preventing him from surfacing for air.
"It takes a certain type of person to work as an abalone diver," Mr Payne said.
"There's not very many of us, it's only a small industry... the guys that have been doing it for a long time, I guess they've just got familiar with it and learnt to deal with what nature throws at them."
The father-of-three, from Esperance, dives up to 50 kilometres off the southern coast of WA, from the South Australian border across to the south west.
When WAtoday spoke to him on Friday, he was on a boat off Augusta.
Like many professional divers in WA, he dives with a shark shield and shark cage for those "rare" and "scary" occasions when he comes face-to-face with a white shark.
"The first encounters tend to be a bit more scary and as time goes on, you get a bit more familiar with what you're dealing with," Mr Payne said.
"Sometimes they just swim past, other times they actually try and hunt you and they usually like to try and sneak up and surprise you.
"It would start off by observing from a distance and then it would make approaches from different angles, pretty casual approaches, and usually when they're doing that they're trying not to be seen."
Despite having his shark cage, Mr Payne is often in open water when he first notices a white shark.
"I don't work in my cage, it's just something that I can go to if you need to," he said.
"It's like a golf buggy, you get in to go to the next spot and then get out again."
Mr Payne, in recent years, has taken to capturing sharks, and other sea life, on his Go Pro, which he takes with him on most dives.
"Out on the ocean, most of the animals are really friendly, they like to get up close, and I think that's one reason I really like to get down there with my camera and take pictures to try and share my experience with the public," he said.
