One month from my 30th anniversary of diving with sharks, I still find places in the world that make me vibrate with these animals as if it were the first time. This is the case of Fuvahmulah, the kingdom of the tigers of the Indian Ocean.
FUVAHMULAH ISLAND
Located south of the equator, Fuvahmulah is characterized by being the only atoll in the Maldives, just the penultimate southernmost, which has only one island.
As a curious fact, unlike the other twelve hundred Maldivian islands all formed by coral reefs, Fuvahmulah is of volcanic origin, which makes it similar to Bali or Gili in Indonesia. It is also the only island in the Maldives archipelago with freshwater lakes inside, exactly two, with lush tropical vegetation: mango trees, coconut trees, papaya trees and many types of flowers.
With different geological origins in its beaches, Thoondu, in the northern part, is the only beach area of small white pebbles. Together with its turquoise waters and the hundreds of palm trees that border it, this beach is included in the list of the ten best in the world.
Its privileged location open freely towards the Indian Ocean, makes it one of the best diving destinations in the world. The quality of its waters is not affected by seasonal changes as it happens in the rest of the Maldives atolls. The reef, with a superb state of health, which extends more than a mile from its beaches especially in the southern area, with the upper part at about 13 meters deep, plays the role of a great cleaning station. At different times of the year, depending on currents and monsoons, there are real chances to see large pelagics such as giant oceanic mantas, sunfish, sailfish and pilot whales. Large schools of barracuda, yellowfin tuna, bonito and hundreds of different types of fish can also be found at the more than 30 dive sites around the island.
In addition, all species of sharks seen elsewhere in the Maldives can also be found in Fuvahmulah: grey, white tips, silver tips, hammerheads, silky, big whale sharks, thresher and... my lovely tiger sharks, without a doubt, the protagonists of this island.
DIVING WITH ITS TIGER SHARKS
The Galeocerdo cuvier, scientific name of the tiger shark, is a macro predator capable of reaching a length of 7 m, which inhabits tropical and temperate waters. These elegant sharks play a very important role in the oceanic infrastructure. They act as "garbage garbage cans" consuming almost everything, including rotting food scraps, the main reason for their almost daily appearance on Fuvahmulah Island. For hundreds of years, fishermen have been cleaning fish and throwing their remains day after day into the harbor waters, indirectly "feeding" these sharks.
The dive center managed by Tatiana Ivanova, "Fuvahmulah Dive", located right in the harbor area, recently discovered the behavior of these sharks towards the fishermen's waste.
Tatiana and her team of guides attract tiger sharks using practically the same system as the fishermen. Instead of throwing fish waste directly into the harbor, they collect it and dump it from the surface right at the harbor entrance, at the mouth of the harbor, where it falls onto a platform of sand and rocks ranging from 4 to 12 m deep.
After a wait of no more than 10 minutes, watching from the boat for the arrival of the sharks, between seven or eight specimens of tigers begin to enter the platform. "Gear up!" shouts Panda, one of Tatiana's guides. I've lost count by now, but I have maybe four or five thousand shark dives under my belt, and when I heard that shout, adrenaline was coursing through my veins again. Seeing the silhouettes of these "great critters", some up to 4 m long, walking calmly along the bottom is an indescribable sensation, that those of us who love these animals, get "the batteries to the top".
Separated about 70 m from the area where the sharks are, we enter the water close to the reef to descend to 5 m and move slowly towards them. The guides will place the divers at about 7 or 8 m from where the tigers are looking for the remains of fish. The action... has just begun.
Five, six or even seven tiger sharks are calmly sniffing the bottom. Many of them pass over tuna scrapes and heads without paying any attention to them, which surprises me a lot. Comparing the behavior of these sharks with the tigers I am used to dive with in the Bahamas, the ones in Fuvahmulah are quite shy.
However, they gradually gain confidence and begin to eat. Some do it far away from the divers but others are quite close, a little more than a meter away. There are enough fish remains for some of them to touch you "close" so that you can observe their movements better. With a certain advantage for going to record these animals, I manage to get my position a couple of meters ahead of the group. This proximity allows me to better see how they behave, how they move and how they feed. To be filming relatively alone among seven tiger sharks is fascinating.
Even though they are classified as the second most dangerous sharks and watching them feeding just a few centimeters away from you, at no time do you feel, at least not for me, any sense of danger or insecurity. They take the remains of fish in a very slow way, they bite slowly, they do not fight among themselves nor do they dive "like crazy" to eat, as for example the Caribbean reef sharks do. They are calm sharks with which you can dive without any problem, but do not lose sight of them, as they are very large and curious predators. Safety measures and attention are vital in any dive with sharks.
DEEP DIVE WITH TIGERS ... ANOTHER DIMENSION
If you have a good level of diving, experience in dives between 30 and 40 meters and you like "the rod", you just have to leave the sand platform and its 12m to dive down the rocky cut. Here begins a new dimension of diving with tiger sharks... Are you ready for it?
The deep dive is prepared almost in the same way, the only difference is that the fish remains are thrown right at the edge of the cut so that they fall little by little down the underwater cliff.
The descent is fast to place you at 35 or 40 meters close to the wall. A few minutes of waiting and... the tigers begin to appear, this time, from 70 meters. First you see them sniffing around the bottom. The visibility is good and you can observe their movements well. After a few minutes, they start to climb. They come up close to the wall, fast, fast enough to make your hair stand on end when you see a 4m "bug" pass less than a meter from your chin. But that's not the end of it, there's more. They are supposed to go up to investigate if there is food on the platform, 30 meters up, as in this case there is little or no food, they come back down almost at the same speed and at the same distance from you. Brutal! As if that wasn't enough, besides still seeing them on the bottom and passing by you like missiles, you can also watch them as they patrol the blue looking at you non-stop.
I love the Bahamas and the dives at Tiger Beach, which I consider almost my second home, but Fuvahmula and its tigers, especially the deep dive, have really marked what it is like to dive with these sharks. Not to be missed... 😉
