The Sharks of Mushi Mas Maghili.

They were always there; the sharks of Mushi Mas Maghili. About 14 or so, gray reef sharks, females mostly; fat bellied but sleek; patrolling the east or west wall of the pinnacle, depending on the current's direction.

The pinnacle, some 30 meters in diameter, rose from the ocean depths to within 10 meters of the surface. Only the keen eyed or fishermen knew the site. When a strong current was running a wake of ripples and turbulence on the otherwise smooth surface was visible down current from the pinnacle. Feeding sea birds would congregate over the site when the bigger predators chased the small fish to the surface.

The nearest land, in the form of tiny atolls, was 20 km distant. Only one of which was inhabited with a Resort/Hostel much cherished by European tourists. The top of the pinnacle was lush with both hard and soft corals. Four stonefish pair shared space with Scorpion fish and many other species. A school of over 400 Spanish snapper could always be found under an overhang on the south side. A school of batfish in company with a napoleon wrasse family circled the pinnacle counterclockwise.

The operators of the resort send a "day" boat, to "Mushi", once or twice a week to let SCUBA divers share in the underwater beauty of the site. They also could feel the thrill of having 3 or 4 sharks peal off from the pack, at 50 or 60 feet, and come up to check them out. They usually maintain a discreet distance, but you never know. For the most part we had "Mushi" to ourselves and stayed tied up to the pinnacle all day, and when it was calm we stayed overnight.

We wondered what the fish did at night, so one night in 1987 while tied off at "Mushi", we decided to do a night dive and find out. It was with some trepidation that four divers headed down into the darkness. The dive was aborted almost before it had begun. A barracuda, attracted to a divers dive light, spooked the diver who backed of into some sharp coral and gashed his arm. The arm was bleeding "black" blood profusely. Since we were afraid the blood would attract the sharks, everybody scrambled back on board.

One year later we were again tied up to "Mushi". It was a dead calm night with a gibbous moon rising, and a strong current running. I decided that we should finish off what we didn't accomplish the year before. Only a kerosene lantern gave off a feeble glow as I suited up on the dhoni. The water hissed past the hull, and the "Jesus line" from the dhoni stern to the anchor line was taught and vibrating like a "cello string" in the swift current. I pulled myself down the line hand over hand. My body and legs hung out in the water like laundry from a clothesline in a strong wind.

My dive light was off, but although gloomy, and a little spooky, the plateau of the pinnacle was visible in the faint moonlight that penetrated that deep. I suddenly became aware I had company. (A guest diver had decided I needed a buddy.) At 35ft on the edge of the plateau, I turned on my "pen light". Mama and Papa Stonefish were out and hunting near the tie-down line. I dropped down a few more feet, and suddenly I was out of the current in the lee of the pinnacle. I did a 360 expecting to see steely eyes gleaming back at my pen-light, but all was dark. I dropped down another ten feet to a ledge that protruded out from a cavern in the side of the wall, and almost stepped on a tail. A Shark Tail! I gingerly moved to a side and peered into the cavern. My pen-light followed the length of the gray reef shark and stopped when I saw 4 pair of glinting eyes reflected in the light. Four gray reef sharks lying on the sandy bottom of the cavern! That picture had no sooner registered on my brain, when my "dive-buddy" blundered on the scene and shone the full beam of his dive torch into the cavern. Swoosh, in a swirling sand-storm , four startled sharks shot out of the cavern knocking us aside.

P.S. I did a before sunrise dive the next morning, and although the sharks were already out and patrolling, I did see the Napoleon wrasse come out of his crevasse, and watched the School of Spanish Snappers miraculously re-form in their usual spot. They seemed to ooze right out of the coral and rock.

The locals though we were crazy to dive Mushi at night, but the legend of the sleeping sharks of Mushi Mas Maghili lives on.