Tourists divided after ‘one in a million' great white shark encounter in 'very rare' spot
Video footage of a great white shark at a popular tourist diving spot has been described as 'very rare' by experts. The five-metre female was spotted in waters off the Balinese island of Penida last week, with the tourists who witnessed it telling Yahoo News they feared for their lives during the 20-second face-off.
Local divers say it was a 'one in a million' encounter as it's only the second time they recall a great white has been spotted in the area. The first sighting occurred in 2019.
White sharks are extremely migratory and known to travel long distances, with one recorded making a 20,000km roundtrip from Australia to South Africa in under nine months in the early 2000s.
Marine biologist Lawrence Chlebeck explained the sighting was 'unusual' but 'not unexpected'.
'It's definitely something that can happen, but sighting one in Bali is definitely a once in a lifetime experience,' he told Yahoo News.
'We know white sharks prefer temperate, cooler, more productive waters where they find their primary food sources. But every so often they pop up in these tropical spots, there's even been great white sightings in Hawaii. So they do tend to go on a holiday to some of these tropical islands sometimes.'
Diving instructors from the group that encountered the shark told Yahoo News they'd never seen one before. Fabian Clinton, the Swedish adventurer who filmed the face-off, said it was the 'craziest experience' of his career.
The dive was organised by Scuba Junkie Penida which told Yahoo there has been 'quite a lot of like talk' about the great white sighting. Because they can travel so far, it's believed to have likely left the area for good.
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'There's been a very split reaction from anyone who has read about it. Some people think they were so lucky, it was a once in a lifetime experience. But others simply say they're so glad they weren't on that trip, they would have feared for their lives,' Amelia from the dive company said.
'We were talking about the statistics about this — it's a one in a million type thing. If you think about the number of dive centres that we have on the island, and the number of dive centres in Bali, each doing at least two dives a day, and then times that by 365 days of the year. That's a lot of dives. And this is the first great white we've seen in six years.'
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- Yahoo
6 of the best summer festivals to travel to, according to an expert
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK). There's no better time to visit a new place than during a festival. These heightened moments, special points in the calendar, are when a culture reveals itself most vividly: town squares are festooned with flowers and draped in finery, people conceal themselves beneath extravagant costumes and wild-eyed masks, and the air is filled with the sound of music and the delicious smells of festival food. But beyond just being outwardly captivating, festivals are also fascinating portraits of human behaviour. While writing my book about festivals, Fiesta: A Journey Through Festivity, I travelled from Indonesia to Ingol, Lancashire – and found that, across the world, festivals reflect certain universal patterns. The —sual rules of life are upended: social hierarchies dissolve, inhibitions are shed, and altered states of consciousness are pursued with relish. Whether you're a participant or an observer, the experience of a festival can be inspiring, life-affirming and, sometimes, transcendent. Here are six of the best festivals to visit across the world this summer. Summer solstice (20/21/22 June)It may have entered the horror pantheon thanks to the celebrated 2019 movie Midsommar, but there's nothing (too) scary about Scandinavia's real-life summer solstice celebrations, the most famous of which is to be found in the central Swedish town of Leksand. As many as 30,000 spectators descend on the town to watch locals, dressed in traditional white blouses, colourful dresses and floral wreaths, process from the town church to the Sammilsdal, a natural grassy amphitheatre. Here, they dance around a maypole covered in plants and flowers, singing folk songs which celebrate the warmth and light of the year's longest day. 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National Geographic
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6 of the best summer festivals to travel to, according to an expert
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A primordial rooting in the earth and connection to the seasonal calendar — common to many of the Glastonbury area's festivals — is fostered by the event's timing close to the summer solstice, and bards, druids and pagans of all stripes can often be found gathered at the festival's very own stone circle — built not in 3000 BCE, but 1992. The festival's proximity to Glastonbury Tor, meanwhile, infuses the event with a touch of King Arthur mythology. And five miles from the festival site, many more solstice celebrants can be found at this green hill topped with a medieval tower, which is often identified with the mythical Isle of Avalon from Arthurian legend. In the nearby town of Glastonbury itself, meanwhile, celebrants gather at the Chalice Well, a sacred spring held in some legends to hide the Holy Grail. 3. Khareef Festival, Dhofar, Oman 21 June-20 September Every summer, in the Dhofar region of Oman's less-visited south, the desert blooms. 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All of which makes it somewhat surprising to turn up in the Noto Peninsula town of Ushitsu each July and find it consumed by the chaos and fury of the Abare Festival, a.k.a the 'Fire & Violence Festival'. Huge, beautiful lanterns, painted with mythological scenes and folktales, are painstakingly created throughout the year, only to be ritualistically destroyed by a band of drunk, loincloth-clad men, who smash the decorations against lampposts and pavements before burning them at the town's main shrine. This symbolic riot of rage has its origins in the 17th century, as a way to ward off disease. Before, during and after the main procession, much sake is consumed by participants and spectators alike. During Phuket's Vegetarian Festival, spirit mediums process through the streets of Phuket Old Town by the thousand with swords, skewers and other sharp objects stuck through their faces at all angles. Photograph by the Copyright of the Tourism Authority of Thailand 6. Phuket Vegetarian Festival, Phuket Old Town, Thailand Ninth lunar month (September or October; dates vary) A vegetarian festival, you might think, sounds pretty wholesome; a celebration of the tasty, health-bestowing properties of a meat-free diet. The island of Phuket, however, clearly didn't get the memo. While this celebration does incorporate much delicious plant-based food, the nine-day Phuket Vegetarian Festival is more explicitly characterised by deafening noise and mind-boggling ritual mutilation, with spirit mediums processing through the streets of Phuket Old Town by the thousand with swords, skewers and other sharp objects stuck through their faces at all angles. Firewalking and climbing ladders of knives are among the other trials which the spirit mediums undertake, all while in a deep trance, to the sound of a chorus of firecrackers. Not an event for the faint of heart. (Pearls, Peranakan culture and rare rituals: this is Phuket — but not as you know it.) Daniel Stables is the author of Fiesta: A Journey Through Festivity published by Icon Books (14 August 2025), RRP £20 National Geographic Traveller (UK) magazine click To subscribe to(UK) magazine click here .(Available in select countries only).
Yahoo
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The ‘Gates of Hell' Are Closing. That's a Pretty Big Problem.
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Here's what you'll learn when you read this story: The Darvaza gas crater—also known as the 'Gates of Hell'—has been burning continuously for years thanks to its steady supply of seeping methane gas. A new report from the Agence France-Presse suggests that the rate of gas flow has decreased by a third over the course of recent observations. Reports from previous years suggest that the government may be siphoning off the gas using nearby wells. On planet Earth, fire is usually a transient phenomenon—even the strongest of wildfires will eventually succumb to human and/or meteorological intervention. But the same can't be said for the Darvaza gas crater in Turkmenistan, known colloquially as the 'Gates of Hell.' This natural gas field has been burning continuously for decades thanks to its steady supply of seeping methane, and in that time, this devilish pit has become one of the country's most popular tourist attractions despite its location in the middle of the Karakum desert, roughly 160 miles north of the capital city of Ashgabat. Turkmenistan's authoritarian leader, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, has previously stated that he wants to snuff out the Gates of Hell once and for all (though the latest pronouncement came years after he reportedly went off-roading around the crater). Now, a new report suggests those efforts may be bearing fruit. Last Thursday, officials in Turkmenistan said that gas being emitted from the pit has diminished three-fold, though the Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that no timeframe for this gaseous decrease was provided. This news is in line with previous reports last year that satellite observations of the Gates of Hell showed a 50 percent decline in emissions. Despite its status as a popular tourist attraction (at least, for a recluse country like Turkmenistan), there's some debate about how the gas crater initially formed. The popular story goes that Soviet prospectors accidentally collapsed a mine in the 1960s and then lit the gas on fire, but local reporting says that the fire was actually started in the 1980s to prevent the harmful gas from escaping. As National Geographic reported in 2013, there are no records or reports of the gas field's initial formation. Although the never-ending burn pit draws its fair share of pyromaniacs, closing off the pit is likely for the best for many reasons. The harmful gas impacts the local population and contributes to climate change—especially since methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas (much more so than carbon dioxide). Berdymukhamedov has called for the closure of the gas crater for at least 15 years, and while filling the pit has been considered, most experts say that the gas would likely just escape somewhere else. However, in the last few years, it appears that the government has made some progress. In 2024, CNN reported that the government was drilling exploratory wells near the crater—both to draw away the pit's methane and to leverage the natural resource for other purposes—but due to the country's secretive nature, CNN adds that these reports are only rumors. Of course, as the flames of the Darvaza gas crater slowly flicker out, some locals are concerned about the loss of tourism dollars from people flocking to the area to see the strange phenomenon. Extinguishing the 'Gates of Hell' may only be the beginning of Turkmenistan's problems. You Might Also Like The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life?
