PHOTO: PASH BAKER
A local guide setting the bait at Tiger Zoo
Whale shark season is January to May and dive guide to reach the fish head first. On most occasions, the sharks are slightly slower, and the fish head is retrieved from the water column and hidden among the pile of rocks in the centre of the pit.
While all this is going on, the many other dive guides are acting as safety divers for the whole group, making sure sharks are not sneaking up from behind, as they tend to do. Although there are dive guides in the water with you, all divers are encouraged to look around, and not be solely focussed on the action in front.
Once the fish head is hidden, the sharks show more interest in the pit. These animals are big and can come very close to you. In the safety briefing, you are told to make eye contact with the sharks, and it is surprisingly effective in affecting their behaviour. I found that the sharks were much more likely to come close or turn towards me if I had not made eye contact.
Tiger sharks have a nictating membrane in their eye, a third eyelid, that can be drawn across the eye to protect the eye from damage. Before a tiger shark changes direction, it will look in the direction it intends to travel. The presence of the nictating membrane makes it very easy to see eye movements, and therefore pre-empt a change in direction. We had in excess of 20 individual sharks on most dives, and the centres log which sharks are seen daily.
There is a database of more than 300 tiger sharks encountered in Fuvahmulah, making it the largest population of these apex predators anywhere in the world. They can be identified by their fins and patterning
Reef manta ray, Mobula alfredi
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