Swimming with Whalesharks!

Trip Start May 28, 2009

Trip End Ongoing

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Where I stayed

Ningaloo Blue Dive

(Exmouth hotels)

Flag of Australia Exmouth, Western Australia, Australia
Friday, July 3, 2009

Today we went on our 'splash-out-treat' of snorkelling with whalesharks, with the dive company Ningaloo Blue. They picked us up from our campsite at 8am, then we were driven to the Tantabiddi boat ramp, where we got on a dinghy out to our vessel, the Venture IV. We spent the morning snorkelling along the coral reef, gazing at beautiful, exotic, colourful fish of all shapes and sizes, just swimming underneath me as if they had not a care in the world! Then at 10am, our spotter plane told our captain that he had sighted a whaleshark North of where we were, so we all clambered back on the boat, had a bit of morning tea & biccies as we roared up the coast, then, just as we arrived, the whaleshark dived, and we could see him no more. They come right to the surface to feed on krill, plankton and other small fish, which is why it is easy to just snorkel with them instead of doing a full dive with scuba gear. They are gentle creatures, that can grow up to 12 metres long. Usually, along the Ningaloo Reef, they range between 4 and 8 metres long- still that's pretty big for a fish!
We spent most of the morning going up and down the coast in search of the whalesharks, but every time we arrived, they had already gone back down to the bottom of the ocean. After the third or fourth false alarm, I think we'd all given up hope, and they were about to set up for lunch on the boat, when yet another sighting was reported and this time we got the go ahead to swim with it.
There were about twenty of us in total, so we were split into groups of 10. We were in the second group so I was worried that the first group might scare him away, but luckily he was a bit of a poser so he stayed around for ages. The groups of 10 were split into teams of 5 once in the water, so that 5 could swim along his left side, and the other 5 could swim down his right side. This meant less pushing and shoving trying to get a good view of the shark, so it was a good idea. The boat would position itself directly in front of the shark so that we could drop off the back of the boat and allow the whaleshark to swim through us (this gave us a great view of his huge mouth), then, once we were at his side fins, we were allowed to swim alongside him for about 5-10 minutes at a time. We got about 7 goes of this, before finally we were all tired and hungry, so we left him alone to get on with his own lunch in peace. All in all, it was an expensive trip, but well worth the money for this amazing and beautiful, once-in-a-lifetime experience.
We had a fantastic buffet lunch on the boat, and then spent the afternoon looking at various other marine life from the top deck of the boat. We saw some Humpback whales, Manta Rays and Turtles, so we got a total full day.