The Maldives became known for whale sharks
Origins of shark diving
As British divers were visiting the Mediterranean and the Red Sea , Americans were opening up Florida and the Bahamas , and each Caribbean Island had its own diving pioneers . In Grand Bahama , UNEXSO ( The Underwater Explorers Society ) was established in 1965 as the world ’ s first dedicated dive resort . It was the brainchild of Albert Tillman , Californian founder of the training agency NAUI , and offered politically incorrect treats such as swimming with trained dolphins and feeding reef sharks . On one reef , surprisingly realistic fibreglass models of sharks had been placed so that wary divers could photograph their girlfriends next to the harmless ‘ monsters ’.
Also in the Bahamas , divers could visit wrecks which had been placed for underwater sequences in the 1965 James Bond film , Thunderball . The growth of scuba diving dovetailed with the cinematic rise of Bond , and Thunderball became the most successful film of the year , raking in an incredible 51.8 million admissions .
By the late Seventies , the most notorious location for shark diving was probably the Maldives , where Herwarth Voiggtmann created the Indian Ocean ’ s first commercial shark dive . Photographs of Herwarth ’ s daughter , Fernande , hand-feeding grey reef and silvertip sharks were published in dive magazines all over the world . It all seemed a bit much when she started feeding them by holding the fish in her mouth , and eventually took to posing nude on the reef during shark feeds . It had all become rather silly , and shark feeding was eventually banned .
A few Brits had made it to Kurumba Village and Bandos Island Resort in the Maldives when they first launched in the early Seventies , but it wasn ’ t really until the mid-Eighties that Maldives tourism really started to catch on . Rob Bryning , a former DO of London No 1 branch , had his own boat , Keema , built in the Maldives . His clients enjoyed manta rays and big fish diving with his pioneering company Maldives Scuba Tours .
Where there ’ s muck ...
From time to time , new destinations are touted as representing a new frontier in diving , a pattern that began with new marketing of Papua New Guinea in the late Seventies and early Eighties . Until then , PNG was generally regarded as a malarial
Vintage grey reef shark
Maldivian manta ray backwater with a slew of social problems . A highly tribal society , its reefs were closed to commercial fisheries and , as a consequence , were in perfect condition .
The must-visit resort in the 1980s and 1990s was Walindi Plantation Resort in Kimbe Bay , on the island of New Britain . National Geographic photographer David Doubilet filed a highly influential report from the area , with photographs of sumptuous coral reefs and uncharted WW2 shipwrecks . Then the race was on for other leading photographers to visit New Britain and claim their own place in diving ’ s latest gold rush .
Part of the diversity for which the area is known comes from the availability of ‘ muck diving ’, exploring areas of rubble and seagrass where certain rare
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