May 19, 2004 - Pacific Harbour Lagoon Resort/Aqua-Trek Beqa Lagoon Big Shark Experience

James and I walked out of our room this morning to find our Aussie mate Paul Byrnes hanging out in the lobby of the Pacific Harbour Lagoon Resort (a bit shaken up from sketchy accommodations the evening before. "here's another magazine, Paul." *shudder*). Together, we had breakfast and then boarded the Rainbow Reef (the same boat we had been using in Taveuni!) for the Big Shark Experience. On board was Mike Neumann, a Swiss guy who has been working for the last year with the local villages and Fijian government to (somehow) protect the shark dive and the local sharks. Neither James and I were sure how the marine "park" that has been set up recently will really protect the sharks in the area because the actual area of the park is tiny, covering no more than the actual shark-feed site. Two long-lining vessels have already been chased off before they were able to make much of a catch. A $10FJ levy is paid to the local village for each diver that participates in the shark dive, so hopefully the economic value of the sharks as a tourist resource will be enough to encourage the local village to help police the surrounding lagoon area.

Here's something confusing: there are two operators running shark dives out of the Pacific Harbour Lagoon Resort: Aqua-Trek, and Aqua-Trek. The "new" Aqua-Trek opened up on Monday, May 17, 2004, taking the name, logo, and main staff of the previous, competing operation. Regardless of the circumstances surrounding the split in operators, it seems that the new Aqua-Trek (the ones we dove with) will be the dominant operator, having already gained support from notable shark folk and clientele.

The Shark Dive

The dive was very well organized, and I was pretty impressed at how well everything was run. A group of shark "shepherds" wandered around the site with metal crooks for protection, and each photographer in the area also got a shepherd protecting their back. At no time did I feel like I was in danger.

Present at our two dives, we had 2 large nurse sharks (large enough to have accompanying pilot fish with them), 2 small white-tip reef sharks, a small black-tip reef shark, a small lemon shark, a large napolean wrasse, and between 5-7 large bull sharks. The bull sharks were the focus, circling around slowly but rarely coming in to get bait. What was equally as exciting for me was the big school of giant trevali, which can each weigh upwards of 55 pounds. They whipped around in a frenzied ball, and would hit the bait (often just above your head) with such force that the experience really was visceral more than anything else. James and I were placed inside the arena on either side of the two feeders (Manasa and Rusi) for a better angle for photographs, but a bull shark only came in close to me once during the two dives (for still photography, a shark has to be closer than around 5 feet in order to get a good exposure).

Mostly, the message I took back with me after seeing the operation in action was that there is tremendous potential in the shark dive at Pacific Harbour, for both photographers and shark enthusiasts alike. Shark feeding is a controvertial issue, and I don't want to get into that debate here on my site, but because there is almost no way to get close to a shark without bait in the water, I'd gladly support a feed in exchange for a close encounter that may help people around me think about their endangered existence.

We were told that Gary Atkinson had been in town for the two weeks prior to our arrival, and that they had tagged a few of the large bulls with satellite tags to see where they go (for research purposes, and to support an effort to get their entire migratory route protected from fishing). Interestingly, as of our time at Pacific Harbour, the sharks that were tagged had not shown up at the feed since being tagged.

At dinner this evening, we sat down with some folk from Maui and from another resort down the road. The hotel staff sat us down at a long table, and had all of the males present stand up and move two chairs to the left between each of the three courses. As a result, we were able to meet everyone at the table. It was a nice twist to end the evening with.