SHARK DIVES

2020-01-29

Well down here in the southern part of Fiji, I was able to get four shark dives in.

The first dive, the water was fairly clear, and there was only maybe eight divers. Before the food came out, the sharks are very calm and you could reach out and grab a fin of a bull shark. The sharks were able to break the bucket that had the food in it and fed themselves prior to where they normally would be fed

There were lemon sharks with groups of small yellow fish swimming an inch away from their mouths, there were big bull sharks, including a few with hooks in their mouths causing problems for them. There were huge nurse sharks, which are very friendly sharks. And plenty of other sharks.

The first dive was supposed to have a lot of divers. A bus of divers from VoliVoli, where I'd been before, we're coming down to dive with the sharks. The normally three and a half hour bus ride turned into a five and a half hour bus ride for them due to traffic, so they didn't make it for the first dive.

So the second dive had a lot of divers, and a lot of sharks, but the water was a bit more murky, for various reasons it was not as good as the first time, but it was still pretty good.

Two days later I dove the shark dive again. Both these dives are pretty fantastic. They had food and buckets hanging in the water, and the sharks would go up there and feed a little bit. And then they would open it up some more, and they would feed some more. At times they got very excited. a few times some of the food came down towards where we were, and the sharks came rushing to us. During the entire dive the sharks, all of them, including the bull sharks, would come right up along us and the divemasters used aluminum poles to push them away. They would also bang the poles on the stone wall we were sitting behind to either scare the sharks or let them know not to come to us. I didn't quite figure out which.

It was wonderful to just sit and watch these huge sharks plus a couple of what I have to assume were Goliath groupers swim around. these groupers are huge. I would not be surprised if they could swallow easily and entire divers leg. Possibly even a small diver, as their mouths open up very large.

On the second dive of the second day, there was even an eagle ray swimming around, which is a little unusual during a shark dive. It's amazing to see the divemasters swim among these huge sharks, even carrying the bucket of food on a fairly short rope. The buckets are the kind of large containers you would put your garbage and recycling out for garbage night. The big wheel type. They are really beefy, and they have metal lids on them.

Diving with sharks is just an amazing thing to do. I recommend it for anybody that dives, and if you don't dive, what's wrong with you?

It's one of the few types of dives that I really wish I had a camera for, but you'll just have to use your imagination.