Whale Shark (8th June)

Today I set out to try and realise my purpose in travelling up the west coast. The time of year I'd chosen was during the 3 months when Whale Sharks- the largest shark and fish in the world- visit the reef. Not much is known about these gentle giants which can reach 10m long but they have survived for millions of years

On the boat we have a briefing then a snorkel just over the reef- this is really a practice exercise in getting 10 people in snorkel masks, wetsuits and fins into the water and out with a huge amount of drama. The reef was beautiful but compared to the red sea in Egypt the corals were rather brown. We saw a couple of reef sharks (about 2m long and harmless to people, even though they look like mini Great Whites) at a shark cleaning station (where they go to have the cleaner fishes nibble off their parasites!) then back onto the boat for another briefing.

The spotter plane soon spotted a Whale shark and as the boat sped along instructions were being shouted over the roar of the engines and unweildy in fins we were standing on the end of the boat, water rushing over our feet, adrenaline pumping ready to quickly but quietly slither into the open sea. The boat gets in front of the whale shark, the snorkellers jump in and get to the side of the whale shark ready to swim and the boat pulls away. There are various legal requirements such as no swimming further forward than the shark's pectoral fins, no more than an hour of people swimming, no more than 15 at once etc so we're divided into 2 groups and rotated and there's a lot of organised chaos as we clamber on and off the boat. At first drop I have to swim hard to get into position, face in the water, looking around and suddenly: Whale shark! It's hard to exlaim with a snorkel on. There's no time to gawp it's time to swim. The shark doesn't seem to be moving at all get to keep up I'm having to put the effort in, all the while staggered by the size, beauty and grace of this creature. She's about 8m and as Whale Sharks go obliging by swimming along the surface fairly slow and we get a lot of time to take her in.


Back on the boat everyone's buzzing from the experience and exhausted from the rapid swimming. We get lunch and whilst recovering on deck humpback whales are spotted- mother and calf and we follow them for a little while until with a tail flick they dive deep down, another treat is a glimpse of a breaching Manta ray.

Back on land we move onto Exmouth just an 1 1/2 hours up the road.