The dive on the reef was so good we decided to do it again the next day, before building up the courage to dive in the 'Pass', also known as the Shark Observatory. The quantity of fish is astounding, large schools of marble groupers, snappers, barracuda, humphead wrasse, surgeon fish to name but a few, appear suspended in the current as we float past. Hundreds of black tip, white tip and grey sharks swim over our heads as we 'surf' along the sandy bottom of this 'aquarium'. As we move into shallower water over pristine coral gardens, the occasional blueish green Napoleon Wrasse , over 1 metre long as almost as tall, drifts by. Countless tropical fish dart in and out the coral while others come up for a closer look. A trigger fish even tried to hide behind my unruly hair as it waved about in the current!
Ashore we cycled the 10-km, on hired bikes, to the end of the atoll and witnessed a feeding frenzy of thousands of frigate birds, Terns and Boobies along with dolphins leaping out of the water in the early evening light, magic!
A few days later we motored 30 miles inside the atoll, along a marked channel, to the south pass.