We went to Fiji specifically to dive with tiger sharks. We arrived to find the permits sold out, then got hit by a typhoon that kept us on the island through New Year. We missed our flights, our New Year's party in Hong Kong, and almost missed the dive. Then the weather cleared on January 2nd. Here is what happened next.
Why Fiji, Why Beqa, Why Christmas
From Hong Kong, Fiji is far — but manageable far rather than European far. Christmas and New Year 2019/20 was our last festive season before leaving Asia for the Africa overland. Ntombi was already purchased and waiting in Durban. We wanted to go big.
The decision of where in Fiji came from one objective: diving with tiger sharks. Beqa Island and its lagoon is one of only a handful of places on the planet where you can reliably dive with tigers in a controlled, structured environment. The Cathedral Shark Dive at Beqa Lagoon Resort is one of the world's most impressive and famous dives — a site just a 15-minute boat ride from the resort where multiple tiger sharks arrive in clear water, close enough that divers experience the biggest predator of tropical seas up close and personal.
We booked Lalati Resort on Beqa Island. Our friend David — the same David who would later fly from Japan to South Africa to meet us at the end of the overland — looked up flights, saw the cottage we had already booked had a second bedroom, and joined us from Japan. Three good friends, a remote island resort, tiger sharks. The plan was solid.
Getting There: Nadi, Suva, Boat
From Hong Kong to Nadi, Fiji's main international airport. A domestic flight to Suva, the capital, on the eastern side of the main island. From there a car transfer and then a boat transfer organised by the resort to Beqa Island itself. The resort sits on the island in the kind of idyllic tropical isolation that the word "resort" does not quite capture — quiet, beautiful, exactly what a remote Pacific island diving base should look like. We felt immediately at home.
The first days delivered excellent reef diving through the resort's own dive centre. Beqa's reefs offer spectacular purple, orange and white soft corals alongside large clumps of vibrant red sea whips, with three deliberately scuttled fishing vessels as artificial wrecks adding variety to the dive programme. David, less experienced at the time, was genuinely wowed by what the house reefs and nearby sites produced. We encountered reef sharks on several dives. The diving was good. But the tiger sharks were what we had come for.
The Problem: The Cathedral Was Fully Booked
Then we found out what we should have found out before booking Lalati.
Lalati Resort does not operate the Cathedral shark dive directly. The Cathedral Fiji Shark Dive is available exclusively to guests staying at Beqa Lagoon Resort, operating on selected days of the week — typically Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, subject to change and availability. Lalati's arrangement was to refer guests to Beqa Lagoon Resort as the operator. We were chatting with our dive centre, trying to get a confirmation of when we could join, when we reached out directly to Beqa Lagoon Resort and received the news: fully booked for the remainder of the year.
Disappointment is the right word. This was specifically why we had come. A combination of Christmas-period high demand and our failure to coordinate between resorts before arriving had closed the door before we had even properly knocked on it.
We recalibrated. The reef diving was genuinely good. David was excellent company. The location was peaceful. We made the best of it.
The Typhoon
The weather forecast had been showing the possibility of a typhoon tracking towards Fiji for several days. It arrived. The southern part of Fiji took a significant hit, and while Beqa Island did not receive the worst of it, the sea state made boat operations impossible for two days.
The two days without boats meant we would miss our flights home. Which meant we would miss New Year's Eve in Hong Kong.
We had planned that New Year carefully. Ralf had organised a junk boat — a traditional Hong Kong harbour boat — chartered from 9pm to 1am to celebrate with our closest Hong Kong friends, watch the harbour fireworks from the water, and mark what we knew would be our last New Year's Eve in the city before the Africa chapter began. A German friend had already flown to Hong Kong specifically for it. He was there. Our other friends were there. The junk was going. We were on Beqa Island with no functioning boat connection to anywhere.
Our German friend was absorbed into the gathering by mutual friends — fed, housed, and taken to what was apparently, by all subsequent accounts, an outstanding party. The junk went out without us. The fireworks over Victoria Harbour looked, from the photographs, exactly as good as they always had. We had New Year's Eve on Beqa Island — the three of us, the resort, the sound of the Pacific, no tiger sharks, no Hong Kong fireworks, no plans.
It was fine. It was actually very fine.
January 2nd: The Window Opens
On January 1st the boats started running again in rough conditions. Visibility in the water: close to zero. No diving.
We kept talking to the dive centre. Something was shifting. A window might be opening. The morning of January 2nd, the weather was clear. The question was whether the visibility had recovered sufficiently for the Cathedral dive. For safety reasons, the shark dive is conducted only in good visibility conditions — the site requires clear water for the dive to run safely and for all parties to see what is happening around them.
The guides were on the phones. The answer came: we were going.
The Cathedral: What Actually Happened
The boat ride out. Nurse sharks circling our boat before we even anchored — a detail that, in retrospect, told us exactly what kind of morning it was going to be. Visibility from the surface looked extraordinary after days of rough sea had finally settled.
Then the wait. A second boat arrived with stainless steel boxes, which were deployed at different positions on the site. Divers from Beqa Lagoon Resort went in, came back up, signalled all clear. Another wait. A third boat came carrying the main group of Beqa Lagoon Resort guest divers.
Our guide went in first, came back and briefed us: strong current, stronger than expected, stronger than anything you need to try to swim against. Get in, get to the rope, pull yourself down. Do not attempt to swim. Once you are far enough down that there is some shelter from the current, fight your way to the Cathedral.
The current was, as described. Probably stronger than anything we had experienced since Derawan. Certainly the strongest David had ever encountered in his diving life. Ralf got down the rope, found a rock, held it, got his breathing back. A dive guide physically pushed David down and held him until he was settled. Another guide assisted Chrissy into position. We were placed directly behind one of the feeder boxes — the prime position.
The Cathedral shark dive delivers tiger and bull sharks at depths of 65 to 80 feet, putting on an unforgettable show for divers. What that description does not convey is the quantity or the proximity. On the Cathedral Fiji Shark Dive you may encounter tiger sharks, bull sharks, lemon sharks, tawny nurse sharks, silvertip sharks, blacktip reef sharks, whitetip reef sharks and grey reef sharks, along with massive groupers, schooling trevally and countless reef fish.
The feeders — large Fijian men who could have walked straight off a rugby pitch — arrived last, positioned in front of us. They opened the box. Bloody fish heads came out. And then the tigers came.
Directly to us. Past us. The fish head taken from a distance of arm's length above our heads. The tiger circled back into our sight, made another pass, disappeared into the blue and came back. At maximum we counted five tigers simultaneously in sight. One was pregnant — massive, 6 to 7 metres, slow and deliberate and completely indifferent to the line of divers watching from the wall. Nurse sharks everywhere, too many to count. A bull shark at the further box, 20 to 30 metres away. Fish in a volume that no aquarium could replicate — the entire water column full of life responding to the presence of the feeders and the sharks.
David ran out of air relatively quickly — the combination of depth and hard breathing from the current entry does that to less experienced divers. A guide brought him up to his safety stop. Chrissy and Ralf stayed until the signal came to leave.
When we came off the bottom and into the current again, a metre above the substrate, the water picked us up. We navigated to a rock formation near the mooring line and did our safety stop while the tigers circled — below us and above us simultaneously. That safety stop is possibly the most extraordinary three minutes either of us has spent underwater.
Round Two: With Eyes Open
The surface interval was long enough to recover full bottom time. We went back down.
The second dive was different. We knew the current. We knew the position. We knew what was coming. Where the first dive had been pure adrenaline and the effort of simply getting settled and breathing, the second was attention — specific details, individual animals, the behaviour of the tigers as they worked the site, the dynamics between species competing at different distances from the feeder box.
We took fewer photographs. More of the second dive was experienced as a dive rather than recorded as footage. That is the right approach on a dive of this quality when you have already covered the photographic documentation. The first dive produced the images. The second produced the experience.
The Honest Summary
Thanks to a typhoon, the generosity and patience of Fiji, and possibly our own stubbornness in staying until the window opened, we got our tiger shark dives. Both dives rank among the most extraordinary things we have done underwater across more than a decade of serious diving.
The lesson in booking: the Cathedral Shark Dive is available exclusively to guests staying at Beqa Lagoon Resort, with places limited and Beqa Lagoon Resort recommending that guests register interest when booking to secure a spot. If tiger sharks are specifically why you are going to Fiji, stay at Beqa Lagoon Resort and book the dive simultaneously with your accommodation. Do not arrange it from another property and hope for available places.
In local Fijian mythology, the shark god Dakuwaqa is believed to protect fishermen and seafarers, and many Fijians traditionally revere sharks. After two dives at the Cathedral, we understand that reverence completely.
The Party We Missed
Back in Hong Kong, we had one night before we the ferry to Macau to meet our friend Simon for a few days there, we heard the full account of New Year's Eve on the junk. Outstanding, apparently, on every measure. The fireworks from the harbour, the company, the fact that everyone who could be there was there except us. Simon had been hosted with complete warmth by people who had never met him. He had an excellent time.
We will have other New Year's Eves. We will not have another first-time tiger shark dive at the Cathedral.
Gear Recommendations for the Cathedral Dive
The Cathedral dive requires specific preparation that standard tropical reef diving does not.
Dive computer: Essential for managing depth and no-decompression limits at 20-25 metres with nitrogen loading from a strong current entry. We recommend the Suunto range for its reliability and ease of reading in stressful conditions.
→ Suunto Dive Computer on Amazon
Fins: The current at the Cathedral is not one you swim against — but fins that generate maximum thrust for minimum effort matter enormously during the descent and the exit. We use Atomic Aquatics Split Fins, which provide exceptional propulsive efficiency and significantly reduce leg fatigue in strong current conditions. The split blade design generates thrust on both the up and down stroke, making them measurably more effective than standard blade fins in exactly the conditions the Cathedral produces.
→ Atomic Aquatics Split Fins on Amazon
Reef hook: Standard equipment for current dives where you need to hold position without touching coral. Bring your own — do not rely on the operator to provide one.
