Cheyne Settlemire said he slept well Sunday night despite nearly being attacked by a tiger shark earlier in the day.

“I woke up, there was birds singing,” Settlemire said Monday, relieved to be alive. “Everything was all good.”

His encounter 300 yards off Yokohama Bay on the Waianae Coast prompted lifeguards to close the beach to swimmers for four hours and notify other divers in the area of the incident.

Settlemire, a 27-year-old free diver, recalled the scare Monday at a news conference arranged by the city Emergency Services Department at the Yokohama Bay lifeguard tower.

He said he first noticed the 13-foot tiger shark Sunday afternoon when it started chomping on his dive buoy. The shark was about 10 feet behind him.

Settlemire said the shark was about as wide as an all-terrain vehicle or a large refrigerator, and it appeared to be going after a 2-pound fish he had tied to the buoy about an hour before. He said it couldn’t get the fish in its mouth.

“That was when he started coming after me, because he realized, ‘OK, this guy’s gotta be food,’” he said.

Settlemire said the shark swam a 50-foot circle around him before it headed straight toward him and came within a foot or two of the tip of his spear. He pulled the trigger of his bang stick, but the charge was a dud.

“After I shot him and the power head didn’t go off, my hopes were kinda dwindling,” he said. “I mean, he easily could have just overpowered this little stick.”

Still, Settlemire said he found the sight of a stunned tiger shark amusing.

“I know I hit him because I saw this ripple go across his face and his eyes kind of blinked,” he said. “Honestly, that was the only funny part about the whole fiasco, because … he was like fins down coming for me all angry and mean, and then I shot him in the nose and he kinda (looked) like a little puppy.”

Settlemire said he was laughing to himself, reveling in his apparent victory, when the shark turned and continued to come after him. He estimated that the massive fish, whose nose was as wide the buoy it was attacking, came at him and the buoy 15 or 20 times.

Settlemire said he called out to his dive buddy who was about 200 yards away but couldn’t get his attention, so he decided to swim for shore.

“I kind of started backpedaling, backpedaling, basically it took me like about 15 or 20 minutes swimming backwards,” he said. “He (the shark) finally stopped following me about maybe 50 yards offshore.”

Settlemire said he threw himself onto the beach and ran to the nearest group of people to call 911.

“I was super stoked at the lifeguard response,” he said. “It was like five minutes and my friend was on board (the rescue craft).”

Settlemire said he has been diving since he was young and this encounter won’t make him give it up. He hopes people will learn from his experience.

“If they could get anything out of this, I think they shouldn’t fear the ocean, you know, fear Hawaii,” he said. “But I think they should definitely respect it, because there’s a lot of elements out there — a lot of bigger things than us out there.”