He was swimming an ocean challenge when he saw a shark below him. What happened next will amaze you.

Now this is a story that will make you smile.

In a truly amazing turn of events, a long distance swimmer has been protected from a shark by a pod of dolphins while swimming in an event off the coast of New Zealand.

No it’s not Flipper – and this isn’t Sandy or Bud.

This was a real life case of animal rescue.

UK Swim coach Adam Walker, known as ‘Mad Adam’, was swimming in the New Zealand Cook Strait last Tuesday.

It was a part of his quest to conquer the Ocean Sevens – a marathon swimming challenge that includes swimming one channel from each of the seven continents – when he spotted a shark in the water below him.

Adam said this was when he started to become scared but then he realised it wasn’t just him and the shark out there in the ocean.

He wrote on his Facebook page that he was immediately surrounded by a pod of about 10 dolphins that swam with him for more than an hour.

“I’d like to think they were protecting me and guiding me home,” he wrote.

“This swim will stay with me forever.”

Adam called it a dream come true.

It is a time-honoured tale – that of dolphins rescuing humans.

But it isn’t just in Greek Mythology.

There have been other extraordinary tales like this one. In 2004, a group of swimmers were confronted by a 10-foot great white shark off the northern coast of New Zealand.

Reports from the time said that a pod of dolphins “herded” them together, circling them until the great white shark swam off.

In the Red Sea, also in 2004, twelve divers who were lost for 13-and-a-half hours were surrounded by dolphins for the entire time.

When a rescue boat showed up, the dolphin pod leapt up in the air, leading the rescuers to where the divers were.

For Adam Walker, the situation was all the more apt as his charity swim was supporting whales and dolphin conservation.

See Adam’s amazing footage captured of his swim.