Shark Week   How Shark Week Changed TV  Discovery's wildly
popular programming begins Sunday. Peter Lauria on why we can't
get enough. Plus, VIEW OUR GALLERY of Shark Week's scary stars!
At first it wasn’t scary at all. The cage I was in seemed
secure, and it was submerged in only a few feet of the clear,
cobalt blue ocean water of Oahu’s North Shore, shallow enough
for the top to poke out and allow me to periodically come up for
air. And after just two sharks appeared during my first five
minutes in the water—at a safe enough distance to barely be
perceptible—this swimming-with-sharks excursion was turning into
little more than a tourist trap.  Or so I thought.  As I tried
to frame a shot of one of the Sandbar sharks in the distance
with my underwater camera, another, much larger and much closer
Galapagos shark swam into focus. Then another. And another.
Within seconds there were too many sharks to count, at least two
dozen, all easily a foot or more in length, swimming around the
cage in a frenzied circle.