The dead eye of danger

There's nothing like wind to ruin a snorkelling holiday. A bit of rain is not an issue - snorkelling always involves getting wet - but wind churns up the water, reducing your vision and spraying seawater into your snorkel.

For the first five days of our Maldivian getaway, the winds were gale force, and so was our griping. When, on the sixth afternoon, they finally abated, we immediately grabbed our snorkelling gear and paddled out to the resort's house reef, where we quickly discovered what we'd been missing.

Most resorts in the Maldives have house reefs but few of them are as spectacular as that of Banyan Tree Vabbinfaru. Having somehow escaped the mass bleaching that affected most Maldivian coral in the 1990s, it boasts a profusion of corals - spiked, fluted, fanned, brain-shaped - in riotous hues of yellow and purple, blue and pink.

Snorkelling the reef's edge is a slightly disorienting experience. On one side are the corals, close enough to touch and vibrant with lightly darting marine life, from eagle rays to parrot fish to a couple of oversized bat fish that swim alongside us. On the other side, the deep blue stillness extends without dimensions. Occasionally the sinuous silhouette of a shark glides along in the distance - a distance we're happy to maintain.

One shark, at least, doesn't feel the same. Out of nowhere it appears at my side: four-foot plus of reef shark, swimming calmly a mere arm's length away. I look at it, horrified. It looks back with a dead eye that gives nothing away.

I fight the rising panic. I tell myself that it's just curious - like our lovely batfish friends. I remind myself that it's a reef shark, a species that supposedly never attacks people. It's not making any menacing moves - it's just keeping pace with me, staring insistently.

The rationalisations continue. There are two of us and only one shark. If it were to attack, we could doubtless drive it off with our hands and feet, escaping with only minor wounds. Perhaps the shark reads my increasingly violent thoughts because, after what feels like an eternity, it picks up speed and swims ahead of us. We stick our heads out of the water and swear loudly. Having vocalised our stress, and not a little proud of having successfully faced down a shark, we keep going. However, it's not over yet. The shark returns - and this time, he brings friends. While "my" shark swims a lazy circle around me, his two friends loiter nearby, ready for action.

There's no need for discussion - simultaneously, we turn and swim back in the other direction, trying hard not to send out a "come chase me" vibe. We both know it's going to take at least half an hour to get back to shore and until then, we're easy pickings. Fortunately, the shark doesn't follow and after a few minutes we calm down enough to enjoy the sight of large turtles swimming past. Still, the fun is over. It's time to get out of the water. Later that afternoon, the wind picks up again. This time, we don't complain.