Diving with Sharks in Famous Beqa Lagoon.

I stepped off the bus along the coast of the Pacific Harbour with my headphones blaring "For those about to rock," but ACDC. I had just travelled 4 1/2 hours to get to the Uprising Resort from Tavurua to do the World Famous Beqa Shark Dive and as I walked along the road up to the reception I thought this is it, there is no going back now.

(The Beqa Adventure Divers offers an award winning Big Shark and Fish encounter with eight different species of sharks. Not only does that include Bull sharks but also Tiger sharks and you are not caged, meaning some graze right by your face!)

I booked my accomodation and settled in. I spent the remainder of my afternoon taking a swim, having some beers with some delicious seafood entrees. There was a Bula dance welcoming and a reggae singer for headliner performances tonight, I only made it till about 10pm until I called it a day as I had to be up and ready for 7 for my shark dive.

I awoke before my alarm went off and my stomach started doing butterflies instantly as I knew oh crap, it's today. I made my way down to breakfeast and forced some toast down. I was really nervous mainly for the depth that we were going to go, not the sharks, which everyone I told that to thought that was hilarious.
The mini-van transported a group of us to Beqa Adventure Divers building and we all signed our life away on the dotted line. Next was suiting up, we got fitted for gear and then board the boat.
We spent about half and hour being briefed on the dive site and safety precautions which were minimal but the guides were convinced that the sharks are their buddies.

We reached our dive site which is the Shark Reef Marine Reserve Our first dive would consist of about a 12 min dive at about 100ft, where they would proceed to hand feed sharks and fish as we the divers crouched down behind a 3ft coral wall. Then we would be brought up to I think 30ft where our safety stop would be done while they do some more feeding.
As I flip flopped my way to the edge of the boat with all my gear, I jumped off into the ocean, now I knew there was no going back! I screamed in a jokingly manner to release some tension as I released the air in my BCD and slowly started to desend under the water. I grabbed the rope that led to the bottom and used it to work my way down as I pressurized my ears. The hard part for me is controlling my mind as I think I get a little clausterphobia, so I do some breathing exercises and that seems to calm me down or it's all that oxygen I'm sucking back, lol!

I reached the bottom and the guide directed me to the coral wall where everyone was slligned and watching the feeding already, I am slow what can I say. It took me a good couple of minutes to quiet my mind but once I did that I enjoyed the show. It was surreal how the fat bull sharks would circle the feeder and then swim right up to him as he pretty much handed a piece of fish into his mouth. I think there was about 7 or 8 bull sharks, I didn't count the little sharks, I was to focused on the big ones. There was also hundreds of fish, I believe there was some barracuda as well. There was a couple of times I felt the glare of the shark as he swam towards us and then quickly darted the other way, they were mainly focused on the fish.
After our 12 min of feeding we head up to our safety stop, where there was a rope we were all holding on to, I was having major buoyancy problems as I was almost floating away and the current kept propelling me forward towards the shark feeding. Since I was higher than the rest of the others I got a couple more close encounters as reef sharks and tons of fish grazed by my face more than once, suprisingly it wasn't a scary feeling, it was actually a weird serenity feeling or the nitrogen leaking to my brain.