We sailed a few miles from the Hirifa anchorage to the Fakarava South Pass anchorage. All anyone had been talking about was the Marbled Grouper spawning which happens once a year on the full moon in July. Tens of thousands of Grouper fill this pass, which is sort of cool on its own, but even better is what they bring with them. Sharks. Lots and lots of sharks.
Shortly after arriving, some friends asked if I wanted to go dive with them. I grabbed my gear and took off.
The Grouper, as usual, did not look happy.
I’ve seen a lot of sharks through the years, but have never gotten an opportunity to see them like this. Absolutely epic. And the water clarity was off the charts, too.
They looked like troops marching off to war.
It’s hard to tell, but this guy was at least three feet long. Just a beast.
The dive was less technical than I had worried it would be, so afterwards I felt comfortable that I could do it with the kids. The next morning we geared up and headed out, excited, and a little nervous, to get in with all those sharks. Unfortunately, when I got in the water my regulator ran away (blowing air out at full speed) and nothing I did could stop it. Something (membrane?) must have failed. We’ve had issues with these regulators in the past, despite having them serviced, and I think this incident will finally send them to the rubbish bin. In the end, we were only able to do a drift snorkel through the pass, and while we could see the sharks down below, it just wasn’t the same as being down there with them. Bummer. Will work on the regulators and see if we can try again at some point.
9 Comments on “Fakarava Grouper Spawn”
Awesome!!! Love the sharks. Went on a dive trip to Palau and saw a school of hammerhead sharks. Amazing creatures.
Wow
Cool! When you are amongst sharks, it is always nice to know they have other things on their mind than you. Also nice to see a healthy ecosystem in operation. 🙂
Pretty groovy!
Looks like an awesome experience.
I dived the reef off Moorea and there were hundreds of black tip reek sharks circling the boat, pretty nervous getting in and out of the water from the boat, even rinsing my mask in the water caused a commotion. I guess some of the tourist boats feed the sharks to attract them, so anything that hits the water gets attention from them.
I have also had a regulator run away on me a few times but that was diving in the San Juan island in WA or BC coast in the winter so the reg iced up on the surface, it usually resolved itself by submersing the reg under water but have had to unclip everything and crank the shut-off closed to save the tank.
Have you got air onboard yet or are you considering it, if you have room it certainly is a nice option to have.
Love that you are posting more updates lately, I look forward to each new post.
Wow!
Thanks for sharing that is fascinating. We’re in Connecticut and we e been hearing about lots of sharks off the south side of Long Island. It’s nice to see you can enjoy a rare opportunity and I hope the kids get to do it too!
Blue Planet II has an episode that captures amazing footage of this event (and a ton of other insanely awesome sea life / behavior)! In the “making of” the episode, they describe how they were all prepped to capture the spawning event, but devastatingly they missed it! They had to wait until the following year, this time with more people and someone constantly on watch.
Those pictures of sharks were incredible…. wow