History of Shark Allies

The start of Shark Allies

Since 2002, Jimmy Hall and Stefanie Brendl have been operating Hawaii Shark Encounters on the North Shore of Oahu. For 5 years they directed all of their energy towards establishing a shark tour on the North Shore. They had been diving with sharks behind crab boats, but Jimmy, as always, wanted to show his friends. Show everyone.

"If only people could see how awesome it is out here, maybe they wouldn’t be so scared,"
he said. He wanted people to see how incredible sharks really are. That was his main motivation behind the shark tour business. As simple as that!

"As the years went by and we spent more time with the sharks, our connection with the sharks became much deeper. We learned more, read more, talked more and became more obsessed with sharks," Stefanie says.

 Jimmy tried to change the opinion of the public, one person at a time. This eventually expanded into educational presentations in schools, and TV programs promoting shark education. Every day, as they were taking visitors out on shark viewing tours, they could see shark-fear turn into shark-admiration.

"We didn’t know it at the time, but taking people out to dive with sharks was not only fun, but it was also changing people's lives." On a daily basis they would hear stories of guests overcoming their biggest fear in the ocean – coming face to face with a shark.

It also became obvious that this was the most effective and powerful way to affect people’s views on sharks. Hardly anyone can walk away from a dive in the cage without being a shark admirer, no matter how they felt before the tour.

Along the way Jimmy and Stefanie also connected with shark enthusiasts, researchers and divers all over the world. They became part of a community that has a shared passion and therefore a shared concern for sharks!

Making a difference as an individual can be overwhelming. Creating an organization where shark supporters can combine efforts and find support seemed like the next logical step.
Unfortunately Jimmy didn’t live to see the day of the start up, but in his memory, and with the help of his memorial fund, Shark Allies was created in June 2007.