Fuvahmulah is the one-island atoll of the Maldives, in the far south of the country between the Huvadhu and Addu atolls, an island rising alone from deep ocean with two freshwater lakes in its middle, forest, taro beds and mango trees, and the largest known gathering of tiger sharks in the world off its harbour, dived on a line in the sand a few minutes from the quay. The island has no lagoon, so for most of its history it could not be landed on in safety, with the swell breaking straight onto the reef, and it was cut off enough to keep its own dialect, Fuvahmulaki, which other Maldivians find hard to follow, and its own crops, since the fresh water under the island grows mangoes, taro and pineapples the rest of the country cannot; the harbour built in 2002 changed everything, and the fish scraps thrown from the quay drew the tiger sharks, which now come to the divers settled on the sand at the harbour mouth, several at a time, in the dive that has made the island famous. Between March and May the giant oceanic manta, the far larger ocean-going cousin of the reef mantas, gathers to feed and be cleaned off the island, with more than 85 percent of all oceanic manta sightings in the Maldives recorded here, and scalloped hammerheads school in the deep water from January to March.
A single road loops the island through the forest, and the afternoon is taken at Thoondu, the northern point, where the families spread out on the white pebbles to swim and eat as the light drops; the southwest monsoon drags the pebble beach north into a long spit between July and September, and where it closes off, the enclosed pools left behind become the island's swimming place. Towards the end of the monsoon the flying fish are driven onto the northwestern shore by tuna below and frigatebirds above, and the island turns out to collect them. Fuvahmulah is an island that stands alone in the ocean, and the sharks come to its door.