Tiger Beach

Nothing about the logistics is casual. The flat lies well out on the Little Bahama Bank with no land in sight, so every dive begins with a crossing: a long run from West End on Grand Bahama for a day boat, or an overnight steam for the liveaboards that then sit over the site for days at a stretch. Once the boat is tied off, the day stops being a series of trips and becomes one long session, with divers cycling in and out of the water for hours, surfacing to warm through and going back down.

A dive here is closer to a staged encounter than a swim. The crew works bait on the sand, divers settle into a line or a shallow arc with the boat behind them, and everyone stays low and still while the sharks work the space in front. There is no touring; you may spend an entire dive within a few metres of where you landed. Because you sit motionless in water that runs in the mid-twenties Celsius and drops toward the bottom of that range in winter, most people wear far more exposure protection than the depth alone would suggest.

White sand, scattered rubble and thin grass make a plain stage, bright enough that photographers get clean sunlit backgrounds without lighting the whole frame, and blank enough that nothing on the bottom competes with the animals. Bahamian waters have been closed to longlining since the early 1990s and the country declared its whole exclusive economic zone a shark sanctuary in 2011, which is part of the background to the numbers seen here. Neighbouring sites on the same bank differ less in scenery than in which species favour them, so a multi-day charter shifts a short distance rather than changing character.

This is a specialist trip and a deliberately repetitive one: the same shallow sand, the same briefing, several times a day, for as long as the weather holds. It suits photographers, shark-focused divers and anyone building comfort around large animals, and it disappoints people who want reef, structure or variety. Weather governs the calendar. The crossing is exposed, September is effectively a write-off, and the winter dates that add hammerheads tend to be booked well in advance.