Shark diving in the Yasawas

One morning on a Yasawa island in Fiji, I left my wife with her book and went diving with sharks. I had wanted to surprise her with it, the way I usually do, but this one needed a dive licence she does not have, so I went alone.

It is a famous spot, a patch of seabed the local crews have used for years. You drop into shallow, warm water, follow the coral down, and then the guides line you up kneeling behind a low wall of rock and rubble, each of us shoulder to shoulder. They carry metal poles, not for show: they are there to fend a shark off if one comes in too keen.

By the time we were settled on the bottom, the sharks were already there, circling in front of us in open water, reef sharks mostly, with a couple of bigger, heavier bulls shouldering through. The guides had bait, and the sharks fought over it a few feet away, fast and muscular and completely unbothered by us. We kept our hands tucked in and stayed still. More than once one cut so close behind us that it brushed the top of my head as it passed. There is a thin line between thrilling and alarming down there, and you spend the dive right on it.

I surfaced buzzing and rushed back to the resort to tell my wife everything. She was thoroughly unimpressed. It turned out she had spent the morning reading on a perfect beach and considered that the clearly superior choice. Fair enough. I made it up to her that night with lobster and champagne, just the two of us.

If you dive, this is one to put your hand up for. Kneeling on the sand while a crowd of sharks works a bait ball an arm's length away is the kind of thing you feel in your chest for a long time afterwards. Just do not expect everyone you love to be jealous.