A British diver has claimed he swam nearly five miles back to shore while being stalked by a large tiger shark off the coast of Western Australia.

John Craig was spearfishing in Shark Bay when he surfaced to find his boat had drifted away due to mechanical issues.

After shouting and splashing in the water in an attempt to signal his crewmate, Mr Craig saw a 4m tiger shark “approaching within arm’s reach”.

“It was easily the biggest tiger shark I’ve been in the water with and that’s saying something having worked as a dive instructor for over 10 years,” he said in a Facebook post.

John Craig says he doesn’t want his experience to deter people from visiting Shark Bay (John Craig/Facebook)

When he also saw a large sandbar whaler circling, he said he gave up on the boat and decided to swim for shore.

“I watched the tiger shark circle and then suddenly approach me multiple times from different angles. It was definitely trying to work out what I was and whether I could be ‘on the menu’,” he wrote.

“Each time it approached I used my spear gun to block its path. At no point did I touch the shark as I didn’t want to upset it with a prod from the spear and make a bad situation worse.”

“After about two minutes of this dance I thought ‘I have to get out of here’ and started swimming for shore.”

Shark eats other shark

Mr Craig, who is originally from Sunderland, said it took him a marathon three hours to swim 7.5km (4.7 miles) back to shore.

“I thought this was it, this is how I’m going to die,” he said.

“The shark would disappear into the gloom then suddenly reappear behind me, just keeping pace with me behind my fins.

“Once my heart rate had slowed and I was in a rhythm with my swimming, the shark stopped approaching me and actually started cruising beside me almost like a whale shark.”

He added: “I had to swim constantly looking around from all angles to make sure there wasn’t an unwelcome visitor, with my speargun pointed behind me to stop anything grabbing my fins.”

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When he reached dry land, Mr Craig said he was spotted by a search-and-rescue plane and he was reunited with his wife aboard one of the rescue boats.

He thanked everyone involved in his rescue and said he didn’t want his experience to deter people from visiting Shark Bay to dive and snorkel.

“These animals are apex predators but we are not ‘on the menu’,” he said. “We need them in the oceans and, as much as it was scary at the time, I can only reflect on how beautiful that big female tiger shark was.”

Tiger sharks are second only to the great white in number of attacks on humans, according to the International Shark Attack File from the Florida Museum of Natural History.