Swimming with tigers
The channel runs along the north side of the island where the reef drops away suddenly into water so blue it looks like ink.
The channel runs along the north side of the island where the reef drops away suddenly into water so blue it looks like ink.
The current here is strong. The tiger sharks come with the current.
Abdulla has been diving this channel for fifteen years. He knows individual sharks by their markings, the notch in the dorsal fin, the pattern of stripes. He calls them by name.
That one is Fatima, he says, pointing to a four-metre tiger shark drifting thirty feet below us. She has been coming here for eight years.
Tiger sharks are the apex predator of the reef. In Fuvahmulah they are almost entirely unbothered by human presence. The scientists who study them believe this is because the island has never had a history of shark fishing. The sharks have no reason to be afraid.
We enter the water. The current takes us immediately. Abdulla is calm. The shark below turns slowly, rises toward us with the unhurried certainty of something that has never been prey, looks at us with one ancient eye, and continues on.