Diving with bull and tiger sharks by Beqa Island

Nature
The wow factor for nature - does it show nature at its best? Doesn't need to be the wildebeest migration or diving with hundreds of hammerheads. Rather make you pause as you realise just how awesome the natural world can be
10
Culture
How much does this experience showcase some of the better and finer things that us humans can offer? Sure, it can be ancient ruins and renaissance churches, but it can also be festivals or soaking up some of the great modern cities of the world
1
Fun factor/activity
Very simple - was it fun? This is usually linked in with doing some kind of activity - i mean, walking along some cliffs is nice, but paragliding from them, now that is fun. Its a vastly underrated factor in a truly great experience
9
Avoid the crowds
Big tour groups and being surrounded by loud fellow tourists can sap the life out of even the greatest of travel experiences. This score is to reflect just how much you can avoid this. But. . . The score also takes into account if the crowds actually add to the experience, such as with a party town or a bustling local market
6
World famous
How world famous is the experience?
3
unique
How hard is it to have a similar experience in other places round the world?
10
Overall TE Score
The overall travel experiences score:  fun factor + avoid the crowds + (best of nature or culture) + (best of world famous or unique). Then convert into a score out of 100
87 *What the scores mean and where do they come from
RANKING
How this travel experience ranks compared to all the other experiences on this site, based on the travel experience (te) score
10th/454
Top 5%
continent
Oceania
country
Fiji
Length of time
1 day or less
Typical daily price
This gives you a rough idea of the daily price based on 2 people travelling where they can split costs like accommodation. It excludes travel there and back, and factors in inflation the numbers in brackets show the price range for the full time of the experience (so not necessarily daily). It is a range to reflect different budget vs higher end
$290 (typically $280 - $280)
Time of year visited
July
Primary Tags
Click on any of the tags to see all travel experiences with the same tag
Islands Scuba diving Wildlife - Sharks
All Tags
Adrenaline rush Boat trip Wildlife - Dolphins
Wow Factor
The wow factor reflects just how much you’re likely to say “wow”. As there’s a lot of experiences in the world, and a lot of wows, i’ve gone with a simple ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ to ⭐️ score, and a separate category for the truly "gash"
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Summary

Maybe don’t watch Jaws before you try this!  This is one of the most intense shark dives you can do, anywhere.  Unforgettable, thrilling, scary.  People regularly go diving with sharks – reef sharks, nurse sharks, lemon sharks, maybe some hammerheads – but to do so with tiger sharks and bull sharks . . . not in a cage . . . is unique and, at times, proper poo in your wet suit stuff.  A truly fantastic, if slightly risky, experience and one of the only places to experience this is in Beqa Island, Fiji.

 

The videos may take time to load . . . but are worth waiting for. They show just how close, frequent and unpredictable these encounters really are.

 

Table of Contents

Highlights of Diving by Beqa Island

Diving with tiger and bull sharks at Beqa Island in Fiji - #1 Seeing for yourself the giant Tiger Sharks up close as they dominate the water around you

#1 Seeing for yourself the giant tiger sharks up close as they dominate the water around you

Diving with tiger and bull sharks at Beqa Island in Fiji - #2 Almost forgetting about the Bull Sharks!

#2 Being so focused on tiger sharks that you almost forget the Bull Sharks!

Diving with tiger and bull sharks at Beqa Island in Fiji - #3 Getting up close and eye-to-eye with the Tiger Sharks as they come closer and closer to check you out. A unique experience

#3 Getting up close and eye-to-eye with the tiger sharks as they come closer and closer to check you out. A unique experience

Diving with tiger and bull sharks at Beqa Island in Fiji - #4 The beautiful areas surrounding Beqa Island and being followed on the boat home by playing dolphins

#4 The beautiful areas surrounding Beqa Island and being followed on the boat home by playing dolphins

Diving with tiger and bull sharks at Beqa Island in Fiji - #5 The more chilled out parts of the day in your other two dives

#5 The more chilled out parts of the day in your other two dives

Diving with tiger and bull sharks at Beqa Island in Fiji - #6 Seeing some of the huge Cleaner Fish - "huge " being relative on a day like this

#6 Seeing some of the huge Cleaner Fish - "huge " being relative on a day like this

Diving with tiger and bull sharks – Do it or Don’t do it?

 

Firstly, if you are at all a nervous diver, don’t do this.  The sharks can get very close and the potential for you either getting so scared you don’t have a pleasant experience or freak out and cause an accident don’t make it worth it.  You are protected by the dive guides who have large shepherd style poles to herd off the sharks if they get too close, but there is a big part of this experience that requires you to use some common sense and be comfortable in diving.

 

Diving with tiger sharks and bull sharks in Beqa Island Fiji - This 5m / 17ft pregnant tiger shark came pretty close to us at the Cathedral dive site

This photo gives you an idea of just how close the sharks come to you – this was a 5m / 17ft pregnant female tiger shark at the Cathedral dive site

 

But secondly, in deciding whether or not to do something like this, there is also the moral consideration.  We hadn’t really thought about this before the dive as we didn’t realise quite how much of a close encounter it was going to be – someone really is one day going to be seriously hurt doing this.  And also, rather naively, didn’t realise there was going to be chumming – they added something like 10 tuna heads from a container underwater, which changes the behaviour of the sharks.

 

Diving with tiger sharks and bull sharks in Beqa Island Fiji - this tiger shark stayed pretty close to us for 30mkins

This tiger shark stayed pretty close to us for 30mins

 

For sure there are other benefits to be considered, such as the employment provided – the community on Beqa Island is a environmentally friendly one and is heavily  supported by the diving – and the generation of funds that helps protect the area, but its worth weighing these up in your decision.

Travel Tips

 

Pacific Harbour or Beqa Island? – you set off on your dive either from Pacific Harbour, or through one of the two resorts on Beqa Island itself.  We ended up staying in the Beqa Lagoon Resort, which was nice and had a great vibe for people to all share their shark diving experiences – have a look at Beqa Lagoon Resort Shark Dives and can ask them direct to confirm timings.  If only have a day, or even one night, I think best to just set off from Pacific Harbour.

 

Timings – the Shark feeding – which leads to a dramatic difference in the number of sharks – is only on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

 

Diving details – we dived for 2 days, with 2 dives per day (although the US$200 is for the one day with the shark feeding).  You’ll visit most likely two spots:

  • The Cathedral at 21m – we visited this three times.  First time we saw very little other than shark teeth, and then the other two were when we saw the tigers and bulls

 

 

  • Carpet Cove at 20m – very nice reef dive

 

2 week itinerary for Fiji, Tonga and Samoa – the shark diving was just one experience amongst many unforgettable ones on a 2 week trip we did through Tonga, Fiji and Samoa.  Have a look  at the travel entry – 2 weeks for Fiji, Tonga and Samoa – for the highlights and tips on how to get the best out of 2 weeks in this part of the world.

How does this compare with other Wow Factor Dives?

 

I’ve been fortunate to have dived most of the really famous dive sites in the world, so this is my take on how Beqa Island stacks up:

 

More extreme – the only thing that comes even close is probably diving with the hammerheads in the Galapagos due to the strong currents, or if you’re a lunatic and get in the water in Mexico with the crocodiles.  But Beqa Island is more extreme.

More dangerous – I’ve mentioned above that you need to be an experienced and confident diver and that the dive guides with you shepherd away the sharks, but the danger is still very real.  Its comparable to something like cave diving in the Cenotes in the Yucutan– its all fine until something goes wrong.

Bigger “Big Stuff” – the only step up for this for sharks would be the great whites, which you’d be in a cage for, or the whale sharks, which you typically will be snorkelling with rather than diving.  The obvious next step up would be whales, such as Swimming with Humpback Whales and relaxing in paradise in Vava’u, but again that would be snorkelling.

General diving quality – it doesn’t have the outrageous colour explosion of the reefs such as in diving in Indonesia’s Raja Ampat or the Red Sea.  There are nice reef dives, but this is about the big stuff.

Cheaper – the wow diving listed above tends to be expensive – Galapagos US$800 a day, Raja Ampat US$600 a day, US$600 a day for the humpbacks – whereas Beqa Island is US$180-US$220 (2026 prices) for the day trip.  So this is a far cheaper way to see the big stuff.

 

Experiences Nearby

The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences

Other Great Diving Experiences

Swimming with Humpback Whales and relaxing in paradise in Vava’u
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Scuba diving at Wolf and Darwin Islands in the Galapagos
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Scuba diving the Cenotes of Tulum
⭐⭐⭐⭐

Scuba diving in the Red Sea from Hurghada
⭐⭐

Sailing the Komodo Islands in November
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Diving and staying in guest houses in Central Raja Ampat
⭐⭐⭐

Diving the Blue Hole
⭐⭐⭐

Scuba diving in Cozumel
⭐⭐⭐

Diving and relaxing around Ko Phi Phi
⭐⭐⭐

Swimming with Whale Sharks in Donsol
⭐⭐⭐

Diving with Thresher Sharks at Malapascua Island
⭐⭐⭐

Score Detail

The scores above are the real point of this site.

Over 20+ years and 100+ countries, I’ve tried to rank the world’s best travel experiences — from genuinely mind-blowing ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to the properly gash.

Every one of the 500+ places on this site has both a Wow Factor rating and a more analytical Travel Experience (TE) score based on the things that actually make travel memorable.

If you're curious about the thinking behind it, head to the About page.

Otherwise, explore the map above or on the Home page and see which places truly deliver maximum wow.

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