Pacific Harbour, Central, Fiji

Arriving in Nadi international airport we were greeted with a downpour, much as you would expect mid afternoon in the tropics during wet season. A tall skinny Indo-Fijian chap filled us in on a good bit of local and historic trivia as we headed towards Pacific Harbour on the South coast of the main Island, Viti Levu. I’m not sure at what point we decided it would be a great idea to go Scuba Diving with seriously big sharks but this is where we were based to do just that.

Our home for the week, the Uprising Beach Resort was a step up on the luxury ladder from what we have been used to. We have been staying in a huge garden bure with en-suite and an outdoor shower which is very cool to use at dawn. There seems to be loads of wildlife about. A huge land crab ran into the restaurant trying to find somewhere to lay its eggs – took Em a while to convince the locals to let it go, they were all for eating it. There are loads of frogs, toads and lizards running around and one morning a giant fruit bat was beating a slow path across the sky well after the sun had come up.

Our hosts for the week were the highly acclaimed Beqa Adventure Divers. These nutters have put together what the Scuba Diving fraternity has voted the best shark dive on the planet. With the promise of seeing up to 8 types of shark, this was going to make or break my fear of these underwater predators.

From an eco-tourism perspective the whole thing has been put together very professionally. A marine reserve has been set up in the Beqa Channel. This followed years of over fishing, the villages now receive a marine entry fee from each diver and in return ensure no fishing takes place within the reserve boundaries. The channel is very deep at between 1 and 2 km making it a perfect habitat for the big game fish (giant trevally, red bass, giant grouper etc) that large sharks love to eat.

Two of the village elders, Papa and Rusi are experienced dive masters, skipper the boats and take control of the feeding. The other ‘guardian angel’ divers swim with metal sticks to protect the customers and also come from the village. This is completely crazy – they don’t fear the sharks, from an interview… Manasa Bulivou, the speaker for his village, explains: ‘Shark is our sea god. The sharks will never get on to me. This relationship has been carried on for many, many years. The sharks are not allowed to take us.’ …. Anyway, I was scared, there were going to be a lot of bull sharks down there and the stats show they are more likely to do me some damage than a great white!

We decided to get to know our new Fijian friends with a day diving the spectacular soft corals for which Fiji is renowned. The day started off with a bit of a drama, the island was on high alert for a tsunami following the earthquake in Chile. All coastal resorts and villages had to be evacuated to higher ground inland, nothing materialised. This moved our plans from am to pm, no real big deal! First impressions were really good. They were all very professional and communication underwater seemed to be good – ready to go and dive with some sharks!

The next morning it was an early start, up at 6 am. Emma must really love this stuff because I have never seen her happy to get up at this time for any other reason. When sorting the kit we had to wear full length wet suits (despite the water being like a bath), black gloves and enough extra weights to sink us to the bottom quickly. We set out to the Shark Reef Marine Reserve about half way across the deep Beqa channel.

The first dive briefing explained to us we would drop straight down to 30 meters where we would lie behind a dead coral wall that would act as a natural amphitheatre just in front of the feeder. Here we would possibly see bull, tiger, lemon and tawny nurse sharks. After 15 minutes we would hear one of the metal poles banging on an airtank and we should move back up the reef to 10 meters for the second feeding. This time we would be much closer to the action and see grey reef, silver tip, white tip reef sharks. The final feeding of the dive would be at 4 meters, right at the top of the reef and it would be the little white tip and black tip reef sharks, this would also double up as the 5 minute decompression safety stop.

Time to get in! As we started to descend I could really feel the adrenalin pumping. The visibility must have been about 15 meters and suddenly you could start to see the outline of the big game fish. They were huge and scary in their own right. Some of them must have weighed as much as a man and they looked mean and ugly, not at all like the little fish that swim around the corals. Then you could see them, shadows of huge bull sharks slowly circling around the bottom! Time to get into position quick, the less time in open water the better with these predators about.

When we were all in position, with the dive crew surrounding us like underwater shepherds with their sticks, the feeding began. Rusi took the first tuna head out of a metal container with a lid and waved it about to create a bit of excitement with the fish. Then one of the bulls came for it and took it cleanly, as it swam off you got the first real close up and realisation of just how massive they are. It must have been no more than 2 meters away. A different shark then entered the action, this one was just as big as the bulls but it didn’t look like it had been on the same diet of steroids. It was the tawny nurse shark and was bizarre to watch. This one was behaving like a submissive puppy and was trying to sit on the feeders lap and be stroked and fed giant fish heads. After a little while the tawny had to be pushed away as it was making life difficult for the feeders with the increasing number of bull sharks coming in for breakfast. Every so often they would come in too quickly and you would see one of the divers butting the nose of the shark with the sticks, Rusi even had to throw a few punches to keep them off! Crazy people.

We next headed up to 10 meters which was tricky, I’d put on so much extra weight (lead!) that I could hardly move and had to inflate myself massively before I showed any signs of floating. This time we were much closer to the action with the grey and white tip reef sharks, about 20 in total. They looked tiny in comparison, it’s hard to believe they could still do you some damage if they wanted to. They came within about a foot of your face, swimming right at you then darting away at the last second, great fun eyeballing them.

The final feed was with the smaller white tip and black tip reef sharks. These were very cute, most around 1 meter in length and they would swim in between the audience’s heads. Their mouths looked more like a dust buster vacuum than that of a killing machine. The feeders clearly had a good rapport with them, they could pinch their mouths shut and stroke them. First dive done and still alive.

Once out of the water you couldn’t take the smile off of our faces, we’ve never seen anything like it. And yet our crew informed us the best was yet to come, “the big ones”!

We were itching to get right back in the water, the hour couldn’t pass quickly enough! This time there was no fear. After another very speedy descent we were instructed to lay flat on our stomachs in front of another arena, this time only 15 meters deep. This time the sharks were ready for us, over a dozen were circling the depths as we descended. I don’t think any of us expected to come quite so close to such gigantic sharks, some were over 3 meters and they were fat! We were perfectly positioned to the right of the feeder, giving us a prime view of the gaping jaws which came within just a few feet of our faces. It’s hard to find words to describe the experience, one of the most exhilarating we’ve ever had.

As you can imagine it is a little nerve wracking getting out of the water once you’ve finished the dive! How do you get back to the boat without one making a snack of you? As we held onto the buoy line during our safety stop we could see the feeders bringing up the empty fish bin, a stream of fish in convoy and the bull sharks naturally followed. The guardian angels kept down low as the divers get in the boat but you could still see the outline of the bulls as you wait for your turn to get out!

If you like diving you should do it! If you don’t dive you should learn!

We did another couple of days diving with the sharks and some more soft coral dives, other than that it was just lazing around the pool and walks on the beaches, pretty tough stuff.

Via | TravelPod

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