A single paved highway runs for 18 miles through Fakarava. The King’s Highway is the only lengthy ribbon of pavement on French Polynesia’s second-largest atoll. It’s also one of the few paved roads in the Tuamotu Archipelago, a group of some 80 islands comprising the largest chain of atolls in the world. At one end of Fakarava, the salt-crusted tower of Topaka Lighthouse lords over patches of sandy campsites. Near the opposite end, the jungle workshop of Hinano Pearls hides beneath a palm canopy, harboring carefully crafted souvenirs made from black pearls. Most are destined for markets on Tahiti or for the smattering of tourists that make their way this far out into the South Pacific.
Like all of the Tuamotus, Fakarava sits barely above sea level. Its airport is 280 miles from the mountain peaks of Tahiti and 5,518 miles from a stream of overnight departures at LAX that ferry passengers to the island nation from France and the United States.
Only a fraction of those visitors make it to Fakarava.
The island’s two villages—Rotoava and Tetamanu—feel about as off-the-grid as a traveler can get. Yet, in recent decades, a tourism industry has blossomed here thanks to the atoll’s wild residents. Adventure-seeking scuba divers know: the waters that cultivate black pearls here also harbor some of the world’s most spectacular schools of reef sharks.
A Wall of Wildlife
At times, hundreds of reef sharks form a legendary wall of wildlife that draws scuba divers to this remote atoll for the dive of a lifetime. Numbers can range from 100 to a staggering 700 sharks depending on conditions. On any given day, Fakarava hums with the cluck of chickens and a slow, steady din of divers prepping for visits to one of Earth’s most legendary dive sites.
From dawn to dusk, tanks are filled, masks are cleaned and small dive boats course to-and-from Fakarava’s shoreline bound for a pair of passes that flank the island’s lagoon and team with wildlife. For many divers, Fakarava is on a short list of “bucket list” dives that includes Palaua’s Blue Corner, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and Egypt’s Ras Mohammed.
“This is not a mass tourist destination,” says resident dive shop operator Thibault Gachon. Gachon has been operating 02 Fakarava on the atoll for a decade while also serving stints as the president of the French Polynesian Union of Diving Centers. “You can read about Fakarava in many diving books,” he says. “But when you see real life here, you realize that this place is still a very small village. If we get 3,000 or 4,000 divers per year, that’s our maximum.”
Long known as a destination for experienced divers, who plunge nearly 150-feet down to the bottom of the shark wall, Gachon says entry-level divers are beginning to find their groove in French Polynesia as well.
02 Fakarava is one of a number of dive centers in French Polynesia that offer dive certification classes with Scuba Schools International, better known as SSI. While beginners here are not likely to descend the wall of sharks at Tumakohua Pass during certification, they still have an opportunity to visit another one of the island’s epic dive sites, Garuae Pass.
Garuae Pass is the largest navigable pass in French Polynesia. Located on the opposite end of Fakarava’s lagoon, this pass harbors a mile-wide underwater garden of coral, reef fish and (still plenty of) reef sharks. It’s an underwater aquarium that Gachon compares to visiting an exquisite museum rather than riding a rollercoaster.
Here divers can cruise over the top of a wall, mingling with groups of grey, white tip and black tip reef sharks, as well as parrotfish and barracuda at a beginner-friendly 60ft. “You see a lot of diversity and a lot of quantity,” says Gachon. “You see very big groups of fish, because this area has been a wildlife sanctuary for 20 years.”
“I’ve dived the reef about 2,000 times. I think this is also one of the best places in the world to see groups of sharks. Garuae Pass still gets lots of sharks, because it is the biggest pass in the South Pacific and the lagoon acts like a giant lung. It breathes in fresh water when the current is coming in, and it exhales the water when the current is going out.”
Tikehau, Tiger Sharks and Cousteau
183 miles northwest of Fakarava, the even more diminutive atoll of Tikehau has garnered its own reputation among the global dive community. Tikehau’s pass is a well-known home for some of the most sought-after dive partners on the planet: great hammerheads, tiger sharks and manta rays.
Jacques Cousteau visited Tikehau in 1987, studying the immense variety of reef fish inside of its protected lagoons and elevating the atoll to lofty status in the process. “The conditions are very easy here,” says Coco Dive Tikehau guide Corto Murcia. “Tikehau is an amazing place to start scuba diving and see sharks and manta rays at the same time.”
On Tikehau, divers can spend a day dropping below the waves for shallow, certification dives among snapper, sea cucumbers and sea turtles—with a strong possibility of spying a tiger shark. Tikehau’s famed manta ray cleaning station sits at just 26-feet and the pass between its lagoon and the open ocean bottoms out around 60-feet, the maximum depth that open water divers are certified to descend to.
Murcia. “Tikehau is considered the most fish-rich island in the Tuamotos thanks to Jacques Cousteau. The second reason is great hammerhead sharks that you can see here between December and March, and the third reason is tiger sharks that regularly pass through our only pass, which is tiny and only 30-feet deep.”
Murcia estimates that about 1,400 divers visit Tikehau each year, and that 80% of them are completing the same route—Tikehau, Fakarava and Rangiroa, all islands in the Tuamotus. Most are more interested in diving than lounging at five-star resorts. And while a scattered ultra-luxury overwater bungalows like those at Pearl Resorts’ Le Tikehau can still be found in the Tuamotus, more common lodging options involve family-run homestays like Relais Royale Tikehau or Teariki Dreams Lodge on Fakarava. While more rustic than five-star retreats, beachside bungalows can often be had at these kind of resorts for less than $150 per night.
An Epic Dive Certification Location
The global community of recreational scuba divers is estimated to comprise more than 6 million people, more than half of which live in the United States.
Every certified diver goes through comprehensive training that requires a series of education sessions in a controlled environment like a swimming pool before qualification dives in open water. For coastal dive centers, those qualification dives usually occur locally. However, a significant number of dive centers are located in states without immediate access to an ocean. SSI training centers operate in the Desert Southwest, Mid-South and Midwest. And for landlocked beginners, certification dives sometimes take places in closest available open water location, like Missouri’s Bonne Terre Mine or the Haigh Quarry in Illinois.
Memphis-based SSI scuba instructor Randy Wright has been qualifying divers from America’s third-oldest dive shop, Dive Ventures, on the shores of the Mississippi River since the 1970s. He is well-versed in freshwater open water certification dives, but says the islands of French Polynesia offer a chance to plunge below the ocean for the very first time in one of the most biodiverse locations on the planet.
“The vast majority of our planet is covered in water,” says Wright. “There is a lot to see down there, and diving definitely opens people’s imagination. When you’re on a reef, you have encounters with animals that you never thought you would ever see outside of an aquarium.”
Wright says destination travel in diving also delivers a chance to immerse in a culture located far from home. “We take people all over the world,” adds Wright. “Part of diving is cultural exploration and getting to know people people in other cultures.”
Diving at French Polynesia’s First Port of Entry
Unlike the Tuamotu islands, the towering island of Tahiti Nui is a mountainous bullwark against Pacific tides and winds. The largest island of French Polynesia is by far the most populous, and it’s home to a bevy of dive shops servicing more than two dozen dive sites around its shores.
Tahiti Nui appears exceedingly remote on a map. However, direct 8.5-hour flights from Los Angeles deliver a level of accessibility to U.S. travelers similar to Hawaii. On Tahiti Nut, travelers can splurge on accommodations ranging from private vacation rentals to luxury resorts branded by the biggest names in hospitality. And, they can shake the first-dive jitters in a low-stress environment that feels more like a living swimming pool than the Pacific Ocean.
Fluid Dive manager Dorothée Meisen helps operate one of the closest dive shops to Faaʼa International Airport, just outside of the capital of Papeete. Fluid Dive is often one of the first destinations for new divers working on open water certifications in Tahiti, and she says the location is ideal for first-timers.
Meisen says shallow water dives near Papeete also feature small sharks, healthy coral and sea turtles—none of which divers are likely to find in freshwater quarries. Beginner-friendly depths of 20-feet combine with stunningly clear, warm water to create a comfortable classroom for students.
Beginner diver Jessica Fender traveled from New Orleans to Tahiti Nui to begin her SSI open water diver certification. After spending weeks practicing in a Louisiana swimming pool, the novice frogwoman completed her first dive off the coast of Tahiti Nui in awe of the Pacific Ocean.
After circling the ruins of a wrecked Cessna airplane and a scuttled tuna boat under the gaze of a cruising black tip reef shark within site of landing airliners, Fender says she made the right decision.
“I know there are a lot of great places to get certified at home” says Fender, but it feels like such a big accomplishment to dive for the first time in a big destination. I know friends who have gone and done their open water dives in some places around the Southeast, for instance, where visibility isn’t great or it can be a little cold. But this felt super safe. It was surprising how much more relaxed I was diving in Tahiti versus the pool in New Orleans. Diving in Tahiti actually took some of the fright out of it.”
When to go: High season runs from July to October. For more relaxed vibes and smaller crowds, try visiting between December and March.
How to get there: Air Tahiti Nui, American Airlines and Delta Airlines are among carriers offering service to French Polynesia.