East Lyme — For three East Lyme High School students, watching "Shark Week" on the Discovery Channel is going to seem rather blasé.

Accompanied by high school guidance counselor Michelle Dean, students Tori Christensen, Kennedy Nickerson and Zack Skelton, spent a week in South Africa getting up close and personal with great white sharks.

The students took part in the White Shark Project, an educational non-profit based in the Western Cape village of Gansbaai, located about 100 east of Cape Town. The volunteer work program is designed to educate volunteers in shark behavior, biology, ecology, among other things, and promote the conservation of the great white shark.

After a day of training, the students boarded a boat and set about chumming the waters off the coast of Gansbaai, to lure sharks to the surface.

Nickerson said the sharks were "graceful and smooth" in the water.

Skelton said on one excursion he had a bit of a "Jaws" moment. He had his back to water, when a shark quietly surfaced behind him.

Dean, who had previously attended a session at the White Shark Project, said she wanted to take students along because not too many Americans participate in the program.

Dean hopes to take another group of East Lyme students to South Africa in April 2013.

- Stephen Chupaska