mooquack.com

The first thing you notice about whale sharks is how big they are - this image (courtesy of FishBase) gives some idea of the potential size difference when a whale shark is fully grown:

The second thing you notice about whale sharks is that it costs a lot of money to swim with them - boat tours run from Coral Bay and Exmouth and a family of four costs ~$1200 for the day trip.  There’s no guarantee you’ll find a shark, though generally operators have a “see a shark or go again free on the next available tour” policy.  My biggest fear was to pay $340 per person, see a whale shark from the boat and then miss out on swimming with it because it immediately dived - we don’t know whether tour operators would consider that “seeing a shark” or whether it extended to swimming with them.  Fortunately, we didn’t have to test the policy - on the day we went, we encountered and swam with six whale sharks!  Hurrah!

We went with Ningaloo Reef Dreaming (and despite my concerns the on-board adventures could be tainted with SPOTDs like their office staff), they were a really great and professional crew, running around madly all day to make sure everybody got their money’s worth and the catering was also more than adequate. Probably the one thing that could have changed would be the location for the first snorkel which was presumably chosen as a good dive spot (some people on the boat were scuba diving) but when we arrived, was filled with jellyfish.  The jellyfish were not lethal but all of them were armed with stinging tentacles about 10-20cm long.  It would have been an easy enough matter to swim around them except they were so densely packed that when I leaped into the water, I immediately found that the jellyfish were not just on the surface, nor just near the boat but were in fact drifting as a 3D grid (~1 per cubic metre) for as far as I could see in all directions. 

I’d already been attacked by a crab a few days earlier, plus the stingray in my right foot the day after the crab so was not in the mood for being stung.  I desperately thrashed and weaved my way as best I could to the front of the boat before just giving up.  I knew I was not a strong swimmer and twisting wildly like an underwater jivebunny wasn’t going to help me so I thrashed my way back around the boat and flung myself bodily onto the metal platform at the back of the vessel to escape the water.  By the time I got out two others had been stung and retreated to the boat and Di was standing there looking at me wild-eyed and amazed to not have been stung so she decided it was not the best to get in the water.  The boat crew were not keen on this - the idea of the snorkel was to prove to them you could swim in deep (50m+) water without freaking out - so they demanded she’d need to get in the water to prove her swimming ability.  However, when every one of the 21 other snorkellers, divers, and instructors returned coated in stinging jellyfish welts and desperately spraying themselves all over with vinegar, the captain yielded to sanity and decided they’d just have to find out when Di went in the water for the first time with a whale shark.  We knew it wouldn’t be a problem because Di can swim quite well.  Since nobody who went in the water saw more than a few fish and got stung for their efforts, it would have been better to do the practice snorkel elsewhere…

After the instructions on how to swim with the whale sharks (no closer than 3m each side and no closer than 4m near the tail), we almost immediately found a 3.5m shark and were able to swim with it.  Since only 10 tourists are allowed in the water at once, the boat would pull up ahead of where the shark was swimming and then one of the crew would leap in as a “spotter”.  They’d swim to the shark and then when the path of the shark was clear, the boat would deliver 10 tourists into the water positioned so the shark would be swimming at them. 

As the shark arrived, the 10 would split to 2 groups of 5 and swim either side of the shark.  In the meantime, the boat had pulled ahead and deposited another spotter in the water.  When the first group came to the spotter, they stopped swimming, and by this time the remaining 10 tourists would be in the water preparing to have their underwater encounter.  As the second group swam with the shark, the boat whizzed back and picked up the first group who had to haul themselves (wearing flippers, snorkels and face masks) into the boat as fast as possible so the boat could get back in front of the shark and the process repeated.  The faster you got out of the water, the more chance of seeing the shark again so it was frantic messy tangle of limbs and flippers as bodies flung themselves boatward as fast as possible.  In this way, we proceeded to get rapidly more and more exhausted, loving every minute of it.

After the first shark, we found two more (5.0 and 5.5m long).  Since I’m not a strong swimmer, I had to sit for a couple of extra minutes at one stage, swapping groups with someone else also wanting a slightly longer rest so it was easy to coordinate.  After everyone had swum with three sharks, they sent the spotter planes home and we set off to end the day with lunch and a snorkel on the outer reef.  However, on the way back, our boat suddenly passed a whale shark (spotted by the captain) and we were soon flinging ourselves into the ocean again. 

At one point Di and I were treading water right beside a 7.0m shark when I perceived I was about to get kicked in the shoulder by someone else.  Since everyone was focussed on the sharks, it was easy to accidentally kick someone else with your flippers

or swim into someone else because you didn’t notice they were there.  I turned to avoid the flipper blow and suddenly found a second 7.0m shark had loomed up out of the deep and was heading straight for Di and I since it was avoiding swimming into the first shark.  We immediately backpedalled as fast as our flippers could take us and ended up following the second shark because it was between us and the first.  In the confusion, a couple of others joined us and we later found out that a third shark (2.5m) had appeared on their side so it was very exciting all round.  We followed our shark for a couple of hundred metres, as it very obligingly swam slowly right on the surface, which gave us the best chance to inspect the dappled patterns and fish all around it.  Finally it dived down again and we waited for the boat to come get us after it had collected those who followed the first shark.  With the extra whale sharks in the afternoon, the crew abandoned the snorkelling idea and we ravenously ate lunch on the way back to the mooring point.

That night, we were completely and utterly exhausted.  The crew told us the average swimming time with whale sharks for tourists in the 2008 season had been 4 minutes whereas we had been in the water for about 120 minutes. Given I can’t typically swim very far in a swimming pool, it appears the solution to my otherwise dismal swimming performance is a pair of flippers and the world’s biggest fish!  Even when in the water and with flippers pressing down on the stingray wound, I had felt no pain through the adrenaline of being in the water with such majestic and gentle creatures.  Despite my initial reservations about the cost of the tour versus the likely experience, I can’t recommend it enough.  Absolutely fantastic!

May 10th, 2009 | Category: Travel, WA 2009 | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL