Fakarava South Pass
Several hundred grey reef sharks holding station across the mouth of the pass, in numbers that exist nowhere else.
- Depth
- 5–35 m16–115 ft
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Entry
- Boat · Liveaboard
- Typical current
- Strong
- Coordinates
- 16°30.798′S 145°27.498′W
- Activities
- Scuba
Tumakohua, the southern pass into Fakarava’s lagoon, holds a resident aggregation of grey reef sharks counted in the hundreds. The "wall of sharks" is a literal description: a bank of them facing into the current across the pass at 25 to 30 m, holding position without effort while divers work to stay still. It is dived on the incoming tide as a drift that ends inside the lagoon, and on the outgoing it is not dived at all. In June and July the camouflage grouper spawn here and the aggregation swells further. Fakarava is a UNESCO biosphere reserve, and this is one of the few places on earth where a shark population has simply been left alone long enough to show what normal looks like.
Fly Papeete to Fakarava, then an hour by boat down the atoll to the south pass, or join a liveaboard working the Tuamotus.
Best season
- ExcellentJun–Jul
- GoodAug–May
Before you get in
- Past 30 m, where no-stop time and gas both go quickly and nitrogen narcosis starts to show.
- Recorded as a site with strong current. Settle your gas reserve, when you would call the dive, and your surface signal before you get in.
- A drift dive: you do not come back to where you went in, so boat pickup and an SMB are part of the plan rather than extras.
Taken from this site’s recorded depth, type and current, and nothing else. An empty list is not a safe site — the sea on the day, the local geography and the boat traffic are not in it. The briefing on the spot comes first.
Conditions
No live conditions for this site yet.
We only show numbers we can attribute to a source.
Sea state and tide
Marine life you may see
- Grey reef sharkCarcharhinus amblyrhynchosCommon
- Whitetip reef sharkTriaenodon obesusCommon
- Blacktip reef sharkCarcharhinus melanopterusCommon
- Napoleon wrasseCheilinus undulatusCommon
- Bigeye trevallyCaranx sexfasciatusCommon
- Green turtleChelonia mydasSeasonal
- Humpback whaleMegaptera novaeangliaeAug–OctSeasonal
- Staghorn coralAcropora spp.Common
- Moorish idolZanclus cornutusCommon
- Titan triggerfishBalistoides viridescensCommon
- Marbled stingrayTaeniura meyeniRare
From divers
What people who were in the water reported. Not a forecast, and not a judgement about whether the site is safe to dive.
No recent reports from divers. If you dived here in the last two weeks, you can say how it was.
Sign in to report conditions.
How divers rate this site
Rating is open to divers who have logged a dive here.
Who is going
Nobody has planned a dive here yet.
Somebody reading this page is the most likely person in the world to organise one.
Create a planDive shops here
No dive shop has claimed this site yet.
Be the first shop to join BubbleSong Diving World.
Register your shop