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Tufi's Offshore Reefs

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Cyclone Reef: There are actually three sites to choose from at this location, which is one of the closest of the offshore reef sites to Tufi and the one usually dived when the weather is too rough to allow diving on the outer sites. The lee side of the reef provides a sheltered anchorage from the prevailing trade winds that blow so hard during the dry season.

The main reef and the nearby bommie lie north to south and rise up from some 600+ meters to within 5m of the surface. The top of the reef is covered in healthy hard corals and the surrounding waters are blue & clear and on the day I dived there the visibility was in excess of 30 m.
The lee side of the reef is a sheer wall that drops down to about 40m and then slopes off into the depths. The outer reef wall on the other side of the reef slopes down gradually and clearly shows the impact of the heavy dry season seas.

The bommie is just south of the reef and can be circumnavigated in one dive. There are some nice caves & swim-throughs to explore and the southern wall drops vertically into the blue.

Mulloway Reef: This is probably one of the best dives at Tufi – a superb & healthy reef which abounds with marine life. Named after a regular Tufi visitor from Mulloway in Australia, the reef is surrounded by 200m+ depths and swept by a strong current rich in nutrients.

The marine ecosystem on Mulloway is simply stunning in its intensity & diversity and the reef is home to beautiful hard & soft corals teeming with anthias, roaming schools of fusiliers and cruising above the reef are the mid-water predators – large schools of jacks & trevally.

Out in the crystal clear blue waters are the cruising pelagics – dogtooth tuna, rays & sharks plus the occasional great hammerhead is also known to grace the site with its presence, but unfortunately for me, not on the day I was there….

Veale’s Reef: This was actually my last dive of the trip and we went there because I have a long unfulfilled ambition to photograph a great hammerhead, and having been stood up by them the previous day at Mulloway, the Tufi dive team lead by Glen & Archie Kibikibi were doing their very best to send me off in style!

The great hammerhead, although large & scary looking is, in my experience one of the hardest sharks to get close to. Typically found in the deeper waters surrounding a reef, in the 40 to 60m range, they are very shy and normally non-aggressive so it’s quite a challenge to get a good photograph.

Glen & Archie’s solution to this is a plastic coke bottle, half filled with water and rubbed vigorously in their hands to produce a loud crinkling noise that attracts sharks. Sure enough about 5 minutes after we got into position, at a depth of 35m where the tip of the reef faces the open ocean, the first hammerhead appears out of the depths.

Within minutes a second, third & fourth appears and down in the blue there are dark shadows indicating more. However the closest any of them come to us is about 10m, which is much too far to get a decent shot as they are below us & indistinct against the blue water.
So I descend deeper to try and get below them, but as I descend so do they….

Above me Glen & Archie are rubbing their coke bottles like men possessed and I am anxiously watching my no-decompression time disappear as I wish the hammerheads in. But all to no avail and my innate sense of self-preservation kicks in & I start to head for the surface – thrilled to have been so close, but frustrated once again!

Gabriella’s Fish Bowl: As you may discern from the name of the reef this is a very “fishy” dive, with the best action at the top of the reef where huge shoals of jacks, trevally & barracuda cruise past in about 10m of water.

The steep walls of the reef are well worth investigation, but it’s the top of the reef where all the photo opportunities are. On the day I dived there it just seemed like “fish central” and everywhere I looked there were large schools of fish. I love the interaction with such large groups and the way they act as a single entity, but it’s very easy to scare them away and ruin the moment. At Gabriella’s I found that with care it was possible to swim parallel to the shoals and then slowly move in and become the eye of my own Coriolis Effect as the fish swam around me.

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