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The whole reason we went to the south coast of the country was to do this world famous shark dive of the coast of the island of Beqa (pronounced Ben-ga). We arrived the day before on the bus, which was pretty good value for money at fj$3 (1 pound) to get us to the other side of the country. Since it was a Sunday we had to wait for the bus for about an hour. We stood by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere & witnessed how Fiji gets its reputation for being one of the friendliest countries in the world. Every car, almost with out exception, flashed their lights, beeped or waved at us shouting "BULA!" as they went. It was a lovely touch which made me feel less like a lonely traveler in a strange land & more like part of a friendly community.

We eventually made it to our hostel, a quite nice but not very lively place called "Uprising Resort". But it was fine because we had to be up early for the diving so after the best pizza i've had in ages we went to bed.

I awoke feeling as if my legs were on fire. During the night the mosquitoes had enjoyed a veritable feast! for starters; they were dished up my feet. Main course; my legs. Desert; a cheeky little nibble on my earlobe! i literally had been bitten more times than i could count! my legs & feet looked like they'd contracted the measles! However, putting this to one side we got picked up from the hostel for our diving, & once they'd confirmed we could dive (because we didn't have our all sacred PADI cards!) we were on the boat & steaming out to sea.

The place is guaranteed to have sharks because they take down huge wheelie bins stuffed with fish to serve up a feast for the sharks. It's not the same, I suppose, as seeing sharks completely wild, out of the blue, but this sort of thing is necessary to make the sharks worth more alive than dead. & it's still an incredible experience! As soon as we jumped in the water there were dozens of little remora fish swimming around our feet. As we descended these little shark miniatures followed us down. As the bottom (about 28m) we got behind a rope barrier & watched as literally hundreds of fish begin to arrive for the frenzy. Some of the fish are huge, there were large tuna, huge jacks which are short & stubby & look the same size height as length with huge mouths & beady eyes, as well as several other fish with quite large scary looking teeth. As well as the bigger fish there were hundreds of smaller fish searching for a left over morsel. It is just chaos! There were fish frantically swimming in every direction possible, making it difficult to focus on anything in particular. Then, a huge shark sweeps in & then that is all the focus is on. These were huge bull sharks, similar to great whites but shorter & chunkier with flat noses. They are supposed to be the most aggressive sharks (more so than the supposedly deadly great whites) because of their high levels of testosterone, but they seemed pretty friendly to me. They moved with smooth, unhurried strokes, swaggering in like royalty, before drifting out of sight into the void of the sea & into the space the chaos followed as the smaller fish followed in its wake. I loved watching them move. They have an arrogant, nonchalant swagger Eric Cantona would be proud of.

A few of us were chosen to go into the middle where the sharks were being fed & I made sure I was one of them. I went over to where a feeder was tempting a large bull with a huge fish head. The shark was about 3m long & when the guy gestured for me to stroke it i was a little hesitant! Timidly I stroked my hand over its back & was surprised to find it, not wet & slimy like a fish, but course & hard more like there skin were sandpaper. I stroked its head, very conscious that with a split second flick of its head it could have my arm, but luckily it seemed more interested in the fish head! It was an incredible experience!

After the shark feeding was over, we ascended to a small wreck that was upside down on the bottom but, because we were told we weren't allowed to swim through i was more interested in a huge moray eel we'd found. We also spent a bit of time hovering over the shallow reef observing the brightly coloured corals.

It was a great couple of dives (the 2nd following in pretty much the same vain) this despite not seeing any Tiger sharks but the bulls were good enough. It was well worth the travel & money (although it wasn't too expensive). That night we had a couple of beers to celebrate seeing & touching these great, powerful, but misunderstood creatures.

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