Pitufa.at

Neighbouring islands like Fakarava attract tourists with drift dives through ‘walls of sharks’. We suppose that the resorts feed the sharks to get such numbers, because here without fishermen cleaning their catch or other attractions we see some sharks on every snorkel or dive, but never big groups. In the passes we saw some black-tip and grey reef sharks and a white-tip reef shark resting on the bottom (a normal behaviour during day time for them, unlike many other sharks who constantly have to swim to have water streaming through their gills they can breathe actively). Curious young black-tip reef sharks inspect the dinghy and Pitufa wherever we go and while diving a bommie and in the pass we saw some of the bigger grey reef sharks–fortunately all of them mildly interested, but not aggressive. The funniest encounter we had with a nurse shark who we almost accidentally ran over with the dinghy while he/she was resting/sunbathing(?) in about 30 cm deep water right next to a beach. The next day we saw (presumably) the same shark in the same spot, but this time tangled and knotted up with a companion rolling around in the shallow water with bellies, snouts and fins alternatingly sticking out of the water. They didn’t notice us at all and concentrated fully on their mating ritual