Tiger Zoo

Tiger Zoo, now usually called Tiger Harbour, is a minute’s boat ride outside Fuvahmulah’s harbour and is often ranked among the top ten dives in the world. There are very few places where you can be this close to tiger sharks: you settle on the rubble at 8–10 m and they cruise in out of the blue, close enough to count the teeth.

We dived it with the Fuvahmulah Scuba Club most days of the week.

Most of the sharks are big females, and most of those are pregnant. The Miyaru Programme, the Maldives’ national shark research NGO, scanned the adults here with underwater ultrasound and found embryos in 26 of 28, so the island is a gestation ground for tiger sharks.