CAPE BRETON ISLAND, NOVA SCOTIA -- What’s it like touching a live, great white shark? Not as you might think.

Although its skin looks perfectly smooth and sleek, it feels slightly rough. That’s to help reduce drag when they swim. And it’s just one thing we learned when one of those apex predators was lifted out of the ocean, onto a ship and right to our feet.

OCEARCH is a non-profit group that tags and tracks great whites in an attempt to learn about where the mysterious creatures breed and give birth. The group gives scientists and researchers a rare opportunity to study great white sharks hands on, lifting the apex predators out of the ocean. And they use a technique like no one else on the planet.