Whale Sharks

I've wanted to swim with whale sharks for a long time, as I guess many other have too, so when passing Exmouth at this time of year, you can't pass the opportunity up. I travel out to Ningaloo Reef with one of the local companies, I say travel but in reality you are about half a mile off shore, just outside the reef and the crashing surf. 

There's twenty punters on board and we are divided in to two groups of ten. We are given our safety brief, ie don't be a twat and respect the animal. It's a well oiled machine they have in place, with two spotter planes in the air, which are shared by the three companies that run the boat trips. The position and direction of the sharks are radio down and the boats slowly make they way to the location. The skipper places the boat a couple of hundred yards ahead of the shark, then one team at a time gets in the water and waits for the critter to swim slowly by, at which time you try, at a suitably safe distance, to keep,up with it. Which as they seem to hardly move looks easy, it is not.

With effortlessly ease these great majestic creatures glide through the ocean as they have done for the past 200 million years, slowly sifting the plankton through their enormous mouths.

The first sight of these great fish is mesmerising, such beauty, such size, such gentility and grace. It's not an inexpensive thing to do , which I begrudge not in the slightest. You just hope that from the business generated , that these endangered fish will somehow get the protection they need.

We have 4 swims and see three different sharks, on the last one I get my closest encounter as one swims directly at me. I move out of its way and swim  parallel to its pectoral fin at a distance of 9 feet. The moment only last for about ten seconds, but in those precious seconds, the time and effort in getting all the way to this point of the world is repaid handsomely.