DIVERS Mark Sutcliffe and Jan Busch got a little too close for comfort with a Great White shark at the Glenelg tyre reef on the weekend.

The Adelaide University Scuba Club divers encountered the “largest fish” they had ever seen at the tyre reef, about 6km offshore, on Sunday, as the shark circled the pair three times before disappearing into the blue.

In a post to the club’s Facebook page, Mr Sutcliffe said it was an “interesting dive”.

“Well done Jan Busch for snapping these shots while I had half my body inside a tyre tetrahedron and breathing my ass off,” he wrote.

“We waited until it cleared off before exiting the water. Omitted the safety stop on the way up!”

Adelaide University Scuba Club president Gail Jackman said the club would review its safety policies in light of the close encounter.

She said the policy of each boat having a shark shield attached to its anchor line may change, ensuring each group of divers had a shark shield with them underwater.

“Sharks are always there – that’s the risk you take as a scuba diver,” Ms Jackman said.

“Safety is the most important thing.”

Shark sightings are common at this time of year along the metropolitan coast line.

Last November a boatie captured vision of a white pointer shark circling his boat.

The Woodville West fisherman Clayton Arnold captured the incredible vision while fishing about 4km off West Beach.

It shows the shark repeatedly but calmly circling the boat and at one point even having a gentle chomp on the engine propeller.

Mr Arnold said he and a friend had ventured out to a regular fishing spot about 6.30am, only to be joined by the creature.

“I normally put my GoPro camera down in the water to the bottom to check what is down there,” he said.

Since 1987, there have been five fatal shark attacks in Gulf St Vincent waters.

Adelaide school teacher Sam Kellett was killed in February while spearfishing at Goldsmith Beach, about 10km south of Edithburgh, on the Yorke Peninsula.

Marine biologist Jarrod Stehbens, 23, was attacked by a shark, also believed to be a great white, in August 2005, while diving for cuttlefish eggs with colleagues off Glenelg Beach.

In December 2004, 18-year-old Nick Peterson was killed instantly by a great white shark while he was being towed behind a boat on a surfboard 300m off West Beach.

Jonathon Lee, 19, was attacked and killed while scuba diving at Snapper Point, Aldinga Beach, in September 1991.

In September 1987, 47-year-old Terrance Gibson was killed while scuba diving off Marino Rocks.