Tiputa Pass — Tiputa Pass

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Hotels, dive operators, gear, and how to get here are on the Tiputa Pass location page.

Overview

Channel between the open Pacific and Rangiroa's vast lagoon. Incoming tides funnel grey reef sharks, schooling barracuda, and seasonally pods of bottlenose dolphins that play in the surf. Drift dive on incoming current only; outgoing flow is not divable.

Briefing note

Operators run the pass only on incoming tide. Check the tide table when booking.

What you'll see

5 species curated

Grey reef shark
year-round
Bottlenose dolphin
year-round
Great hammerhead
seasonal
Peak: Dec · Jan · Feb · Mar
Manta ray
rare
Schooling barracuda
year-round

Sightings evidence

1 record on file

Grey reef shark
high confidence
Last confirmed
Apr 2026
Recent records
130 within 10 km

Sources & methodology

How we summarise this

We aggregate confirmed occurrence records from GBIF and OBIS within a fixed radius of each dive site. Occurrence records confirm presence and reveal seasonality clustering, but they DO NOT measure per-dive probability — there is no eligible-effort denominator. We deliberately do not publish a numeric '% chance of sighting' from this data.

Sources

Global Biodiversity Information Facility — GBIF Secretariat
Ocean Biodiversity Information System — IOC-UNESCO
iNaturalist — California Academy of Sciences & National Geographic Society
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species — International Union for Conservation of Nature
Wildbook (Sharkbook, Whale Shark, Manta Matcher) — Wild Me
OBIS-SEAMAP — Duke University Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab / OBIS
WoRMS — World Register of Marine Species — Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ)
FishBase — FishBase Consortium
Atlas of Living Australia — CSIRO / GBIF Australia
REEF Volunteer Fish Survey — Reef Environmental Education Foundation

Conditions

Month	Water	Visibility	Current
Jan	28–29 °C	25–40 m	strong
Feb	28–29 °C	25–40 m	strong
Mar	28–29 °C	25–40 m	strong
Apr	27–29 °C	25–40 m	strong
May	27–28 °C	25–40 m	strong
Jun	26–28 °C	25–40 m	strong
Jul	26–27 °C	25–40 m	strong
Aug	26–27 °C	25–40 m	strong
Sep	26–28 °C	25–40 m	strong
Oct	27–28 °C	25–40 m	strong
Nov	27–29 °C	25–40 m	strong
Dec	28–29 °C	25–40 m	strong

Season calendar

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Peak season highlighted · current month outlined

Gear for this site

Beyond the basic kit

SMB — Drift exit into the lagoon every dive.
Reef hook — For watching the channel mouth action while the current screams past.

Next step

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