FROM THE DEPTHS

A NEAR-DEATH ENCOUNTER WITH A GREAT WHITE SHARK ALTERED THE COURSE OF HIS LIFE FOREVER. HERE'S HOW PLUNGING INTO THE DEEPEST PARTS OF HIS MIND HELPED CALEB SWANEPOEL FORGE A NEW PATH

- KIERAN LEGG

A HULKING FORM HAD EMERGED from the depths. It bloomed into view with a churning wave, straddling the incoming tides. Caleb Swanepoel took barely a second to process the threat. He was bobbing in the surf, 70 metres from the coastline, and Buffelsbaai's sandy beach was just a thin white strip from his low vantage point treading water in the sea.

He shouted to his brothers, and they slashed into a desperate flurry of strokes. Underneath him, he could feel the aquatic pressure pushing up from below, a reminder of how far they were from the ground-almost like they were floating in space. His heart was pounding at an even faster rhythm than his frantic swimming. It was fight or swim and all he knew is that his survival depended on this automatic, animal response (and a lot of luck).

"But I had this feeling that something wasn't right," he said. "It's a feeling I woke up with that morning, you know, that something was really off."

Surfers might call it that "sharky" feeling, a dose of inexplicable intuition bestowed upon these ocean-obsessed adventurers. It was a bright summer's day and Caleb, 20, and his brothers, Alex and Joshua, had decided to head out and bodysurf. Healthy sibling rivalry inspired them to wade out deeper and deeper, even crossing the threshold of a sandbank in search of the biggest swells. And now, their canicular pursuits had turned into a terrifying encounter with one of the ocean's most fearsome predators.

"I wasn't even thinking, all I knew was I just had to swim," says Caleb. He and his brother, Alex, were sharing a pair of flippers and the mismatch of apparatus meant they struggled to pick up speed. Behind him lurked a powerful force, a gokg creature with 50 rows of razor-sharp, efficient and hungry teeth. The sinking feeling in his stomach was gaining weight, building up to a pressure point that boiled over when the giant shark barreled into him from behind.