Diving the South Pass in Fakarava

Incredible day diving in the South pass of Fakarava. I will pin those two dives on my “top 20 best dives”.

It’s about 1h15min boat ride to the south pass from the north, and the sun is really hot today. The rain clouds are around but we just cruise in-between avoiding them for the entire day. 
The south pass of Fakarava is also called the Wall of Sharks. It’s very famous for just the sheer amount and variety you can see there. The reason lies in the very mild current that does like a loop. Sharks can rest in the current with minimal effort. It’s like a giant dormitory where they all take a nap. There a lot of them, but definitely less active and hunting compared to the north pass.

The dive goes down first to an observatory spot, which is not that deep around 24m. There on the ledge, you find yourself something to loosely hang on to (there are rocks and mild currents). Then you watch the ballet of thousands of sharks just going gently into a loop motion.  We got lucky to see an eagle-ray enjoying herself just the same way the shark did. We had her moving in slow motion really close to us before she shot off to the surface.

Afterwards you slowly drift further down the path to a cave that is at 28m and hide a little bit inside. Again, you just stop and watch the shark cruise by, they don’t see us so they get really close to the entrance of this mini-cave. It’s pretty cool.

What make this dive even better is that, because the currents are mild, the corals have developed really well and both sides of the pass are brimming with beautiful reefs and a lot of fish. It’s aquarium conditions and you get an amazing time going gently up the slope to the mouth of the pass along those dense hard corals. The past 15min of the dive is done fairly shallow and you pass by 2 jetties, under each of them are hiding large schools of yellow fishes and large groupers as well. Safety stop is done is the sandy parts over there. A fantastic dive which was very chill and with tons of things to see.

We saw: lemon-sharks (biggest sharks I have seen so far), grey reef, white tip reef sharks and bordered sharks.

After this first dive, we went to a motu nearby, it was exactly the postcards of French Polynesia I had in my mind. It was only the 12 of us, and we stayed there for nearly 3 hours. Enjoying the view. If you walked a little around, you could have your own little corner of paradise under the shade of a coconut tree. Fantastic feeling.

After lunch, we had our visit of black tip reef sharks – I took some nice videos. ( will certainly make a short reel on IG & FB )

I enjoyed this even more than the Bora Bora lagoon – because it was just us. 

The second dive was awesome too. Even gentlier and as lazy as can be. Aquarium conditions, loads of sharks cruising around. But we did the other side of the pass and focused on the coral gardens there. There were many types of hard corals. The reef is very healthy. Gigantic schools of fish. 

It was a great day all around. I will put that as my best day so far. One I will really remember.