We had been diving for almost two weeks straight, first Palau and then Yap, with a group from Brazil. We were pretty much exhausted as we finished our morning dive on our next to last day in Yap. We were diving with Yap Divers and having great success finding Mantas. But our ever energetic Brazilian friends talked us into doing the afternoon shark dive, with a little nudging from our local Dive Master Gordon. To be polite we agreed to go with them on the dive, not really expecting much after all we had done shark dives many times before.
We had no clue what a wonderful dive this would be. Most of the diving in Yap is done in the Miil Channel, to see Mantas, but this dive is outside of the channel on a reef that drops off to 300 feet to the bottom. Gordon put me right on the edge of the reef within a few feet of the bait ball and then the excitement began. A ball of swarming fish soon appeared and the circling gray and back tip sharks advanced and lined up in some mysterious communal order. I was in the middle of the action, literally knocking sharks off with my camera. Upon reaching the surface I remember saying to Gordon, "freakin awesome dude", and Gordon smiled at me with his betel nut red stained teeth and said "I was worried you were too close".
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