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Diving

Close Encounters

By Martin Tiffany

I TF you see a shark coming towards you with its mouth open just say ‘bula’."

That not too comforting advice is jiven to scuba divers by dive-master \pisai Bati before he takes them to the ‘supermarket”.

The supermarket is a dive spot off Vlana Island in Fiji where Bati treats risking divers to the unusual spectacle of ihark feeding and shark patting.

Bati removes his mouth piece and calls he sharks by making a honking sound. rVhen a few have gathered he spears ibout four or five fish to feed to the harks.

Once they have had their feed he pats ind plays around with his “pets” and hey respond by swimming around him md through his legs and then coming >ack for another pat.

Six-foot-five-inch Bati, 40, has been living for 20 years but only began his hark feeding and patting routine about year ago.

He said it all started about seven years go when he decided to see if he could ttract White Tipped Reef sharks and Ironze Whaler sharks from depths of bout 20 metres into three or four metres f water so other divers could see them

lose-up.

Over a six-year-period he lured them p with fish and slowly began to scognise individual sharks. “If a new lark comes I can pick it out.”

There is a Bronze Whaler he has icknamed Smiley because of a scar it has n its mouth the result of a fight with

fishing line.

Bati’s sharks are not known to be ggressive towards humans but all pre

cautions are taken by Bati and Aqua Trek Ocean Sports Adven tures, the oper ators of the Mana dive operations.

As Aqua Trek general manager, Simon Taylor, ex plains, the White Tipped Reef shark is a non-aggresive shark that “doesn't have big teeth” while Bronze Whalers don’t have any re cord of attacking people.

He said the Bronze Whalers they feed are not fully grown and are about one and- a-half to two and-a-half metres long. The number of sharks at a feed

ing vary from about 15 to 30.

“We are very conscious of the safety side of things because as you can imagine there is a feeling that maybe its risky. We believe it’s very safe, we’ve never had anything close to an incident and we don’t believe if we continue doing it the way we are, we will have any problem,”

Taylor said.

Aqua Trek ensures the dive is done only once a day if necessary and that feeding is limited to only four or five fish.

This is to ensure the sharks do not depend on this feed alone and start

competing for it and become aggressive.

Only Bad feeds the sharks and plays with them, although other divers are allowed to touch them.

This unique experience has attracted film crews from Japan and America, journalists from the world’s biggest diving magazine Skin Diver and hundreds of divers from all over the world.

But, as Bati says, the only way to really experience it is to go down with him and say f bula ’ to his pets personally.

Eating out of his hand: Bati and friend.