You won't find interesting scenic dives in the passes of the Tuamotus. There are few varieties of hard corals, no colourful soft corals and the reef banks are sloping and featureless. You get turtles, moray eels and titan triggerfish but not the variety of reef fish in the Red Sea or Indonesia, says John Bantin. So why go all the way to French Polynesia? For the wall-to-wall sharks more...

French Polynesia is the size of western Europe, so travelling between the best dive sites can be a time-consuming process, and costly too. But with several UK tour operators looking to add it to their brochures, John Bantin set off on a three-week haul around the Pacific, and sent back some postcards more...

Win the trust of humpback whales and it's possible to interact with them for long periods. Tally Pozzoli got to know some of these not-always gentle giants around the Pacific island of Rurutu - including a calf called Crazy Baby which has taken scientists by surprise more...