Terrifying moment marine scientist finds herself inches away from tiger shark nicknamed Queen Nikki

A marine scientist had a close encounter with a tiger shark who snapped at her as she was about to enter the waters in Hawaii.

The hair-raising moment was captured on video as researcher Ocean Ramsey prepared to get into the waters near Oahu after she spotted the shark colliding with plastic pollution.

The shark, a prominent one in the area nicknamed Queen Nikki, burst out of the water and tried to take a bite out of the scientist’s flippers.

Ms Ramsey, who is the CEO of the OneOcean Diving conservatory and education group, was seemingly unphased by the incident and got straight into the water to dive with two other sharks.

She went on to describe the incident on her social media accounts.

“I saw a shark bumping some floating plastic so I rushed in and this was my greeting,” she joked on Instagram, before telling her followers that Nikki, who she has swum with for years, had not tried to attack her.

“I couldn’t see very far and I don’t think they could either, so I think (Nikki) was reacting more from my initial noise entering and shadow,” she said. “I always love seeing their white belly coming up from the depths and in this case it’s what gave her position away so she was actually easier to spot coming up vertical compared to the others already near the surface.”

She described the shark’s actions as a “spy hop”, where they poke their heads out of the water to see what is around them in murky water conditions.

Ramsey also said that the shark was likely attracted to the camera-filled boat by her electro-receptors.

The Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources says that there have been four shark attacks in the state in 2022, with two of those happening in September. Data shows that in 2021 there were eight such attacks.