Barefoot Kuata - BULL SHARKS!

My time on the Yasawa Islands was slowly coming towards the end. However, I still had a few days left with one of those days being my biggest highlight in the country and definitely up there in terms of things I did on my trip.

But first things first. Having left Oarsman's Bay, my initial destination was Kuata Island - home of the Barefoot Kuata Resort. However, since they were fully booked until the following night, I did a brief pit stop on South Sea Island for the night, before heading to Kuata the following morning.

Anyway, as soon as I arrived on Kuata, I headed to the dive shop to confirm my registration for a shark dive. I had seen this activity on Instagram last year and had immediately thought to myself: "You have to do this!". It is also a major reason why I did my diving certification (not the only one, but a big contributor).

On the island, I met Kenadee, a girl from Canada, who was also doing the shark dive and who in fact is a marine biologist specialising on shark bebaviour and tagging. So the day we arrived on Kuata, we chilled out by one of the three pools, had delicious meals and went to bed early-ish, as the shark dive was at 8am the next morning.

And here we go. The next morning. Of course I was a bit nervous. After all, we would dive with bull sharks - the deadliest type of shark in the world and among the three most dangerous animals in the ocean. On top of it, there would not be any cages that we would be in. It was all in the open water. We did have bodyguards with sticks, though, to protect us and prevent the sharks from taking a curious bite at us.

So, after a briefing of how to behave („don't reach over a little wall behind which you sit"), how deep we would dive („12 meters"), how long the dive would be („35-45 minutes") and what to do in an emergency („wobble with your hand and point to where the issue is"), we suited up in our dive gear, jumped on the dive boat and headed out.

By this point, I surely was nervous. After all, bull sharks are known to be deadly to human-beings, and even if there are a lot of misconceptions about them (i.e. they actually don't like human blood, they bite mostly surfers as they mistake them for seals, etc), it would certainly be safer to just go snorkeling or lounging by the pool. Also, I had not told my parents about this specific dive.

After a 20-25 minute boat ride it was time to dive. We backrolled into the water and started to dive down. We dived very close to a reef wall, but even before we arrived at our designated spot, we already saw the first bull shark in the distance as visibility was fantastic that day. Amazingly, once I saw the shark, my nervousness was gone and replaced by sheer joy, curiosity and being in awe.

Shortly after the first sighting, we arrived at the designated spot to watch the bull sharks. The spot was behind a small wall of rocks with a large reef wall behind us. We kneeled down and started to see more and more bull sharks arriving.

To ensure the bull sharks would be there, the organiser of the dive have four tuna heads to give to the sharks. However, since there were a total of 16 bull sharks, 12 would not get anything. In other words they have to 'hunt' for food in the ocean themselves. This was hugely important to me, as it ensures that the sharks do not forget their natural ability to hunt - otherwise, I would not have done the dive!

Back to the dive. Kneeling there and watching the bull sharks arrive, circle around and catch a tuna head every once in a while might as well have been one of the most amazing things I have seen in my life - and I have seen some cool stuff. The sharks came incredibly close, so close, that if l wanted to, I could've touched them (definitely did not want to do that. I like my hands and arms too much). It was simply incredible and beyond my wildest imagination that such a thing is possible to witness. I could've stayed down there for hours to watch them. The sharks looked incredible. Like the kings of the ocean.

Once we were back on the boat, all of us were truly lost for words and had big big smiles on our faces. I was asked what it felt like and I described it as this (from a voice message I sent to a friend shortly after the dive):

"It is so so difficult so explain. I mean, I was a bit nervous before. I mean you dive with a shark that is among the three deadliest sharks on the planet. They say it is save and nothing has ever happened, but you never know. Then you get in the water, and once you see the first shark even if you are not in your position yet, you cannot help but just think "wow". You are just in awe of this animal. It is difficult to describe, because it is such a magical creature. Yes, it looks a bit scary, but you are not scared at all, actually. […] You sit behind a wall and they come so close, like 1 meter in front of your face. You could feel the fin going through the water. You just look at them and you kind of want them to come to you face to face. And there was one shark who only had one eye and part of his mouth was bitten off and you could see its teeth. That was a bit scary, but even then, you don't feel scared but sorry for the shark. And once we all came out of the water, we looked at us and thought, ‚what has just happened?‘. The experience is just so out of the ordinary and so unreal that you think just ‚wow‘. You feel like you want to be among them, not just watch them. I know I am repeating myself, but it was just so so spectacular".

It was better than I could have imagined. And once we were back on land, we looked at the footage by the pool, had lunch and just kept talking about how unreal and incredible the experience was. I am still lost for words. maybe the video in this post provides an idea what it is like.

One of the most spectacular days of my life!En savoir plus