Where to Dive With Bull Sharks in Fiji (Awakening Shark Dive at Barefoot Kuata Island)
The Fiji Islands are located in the Pacific Ocean and have pristine reefs full of marine life and that includes sharks as well! There are several places where you can dive with bull sharks and tiger sharks. In this post, we journey to Barefoot Kuata Island (link) in the Yasawa chain of Islands in Fiji to dive with Bull Sharks!
To reach the islands, I recommend you take the Yasawa flyer ferry. While they do offer day tours, I decided to book a 2 night stay. Remember that the dives happen in the morning at 8 am and the ferry only reaches the island at around 11 am so don’t count on being able to dive the first day. It is also tricky if you are planning to to continue to another island as you need to be back in time and packed to catch the 11 am ferry. This island resort is not run by a large company but rather by the locals and there is the village chief that overseas the operations.
Their website did ask for diving insurance but it was not verified and neither was my PADI card. Note, they ask that you are at least Open Water certified. The dive occurs at 22m but they do have a shallower dive. It seems the Discover Scuba Dive can be done as a shark dive! Can you imagine!?!
Booking was incredibly easy. The dive shop is located right on the beach and as there is only 1 resort, it’s impossible to miss. You simply walk to the booth to sign up and pay. We prepped all our gear and installed our BCD, tank and regulators on the beach before getting on the boat as it was a very tiny wooden boat. A 20 minute ride later to the middle of nowhere and we had arrived at the dive site. We were a group of 4 divers and there was 1 dive master for every diver plus 1 diver to do the feeding and his dive buddy.
They asked us to quickly get in the water and not to splash around to avoid attracting unwanted attention (Nervous laughter). We did a back roll entry in the water with negative buoyancy and the dive plan was to regroup at the bottom. We followed the divemaster to an area where there were rubber pads installed and a half wall made of rocks.
I saw large grey objects moving in the distance and realized the sharks were already there! We were instructed to lean on the rubber pads with our knees. The diver in front of us fed the sharks fish heads while we enjoyed the show.
BULLS SHARK SEFLIE
How dangerous was it?
The sharks were not even that scary. They really could not care any less that we were there. The scariest part was this fish that kept biting my hands as I rested it on the rocks. I think maybe it was being territorial. At the start of the dive, I jumped in wearing new wetsuit and as the group began their descent, I was unable to descend with them. This was likely because my wetsuit was new and it takes some time for it to absorb water. If this ever happens to you, you can pull at the neck collar of your wetsuit to allow water in along with turning upside down and swimming down (just make sure that you are properly weighed so that you won’t be positively buoyant during your safety stop).
Check out the video below for the full dive or scroll further down for some photos!
During the dive, the divemasters kept track of which sharks they saw and fed. This data is used to monitor their health and for scientific research.
As one diver became low on air, her divemaster headed back to the boat with her. The rest of us stayed until they ran out of fish, at which point it seemed as if the shark knew and started to disperse. We came back up slowly as a group in case there were any wondering sharks and we looked like a lonely seal. During our safety stop, I kept an eye out for sharks but instead was distracted by 2 remoras who kept circling us. The dive path is along a slope which made it easy as we just had to follow the ocean floor back towards the boat!
Overall this was a thrilling experience and if you love sharks, I highly recommend it!