Click on a photo.

1. My Whale Shark Experience

The photos above are from a recent trip to the Seychelles, a country made up of a series of islands 1000 miles East of Africa, 4 deg South 55 deg East.

David Rowat the one of the owners of Seychelles Underwater Centre runs a program with the Marine Conservation Society Seychelles, they run a Whale Shark tagging program, the dive centre uses one of its boats to go out and tag the sharks, guided by a Microlight Aircraft flying above acting as a spotter plane. TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS ENCOUNTER SCROLL DOWN OR CLICK THIS LINK

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2. Whale Sharks from Auger Production Platform in the Gulf of Mexico

 

This Whale shark is in the Gulfof Mexico, he has come by the Auger production platform several times, to the point where the crew christened him "Auger", like the whale sharks I encountered he is relatively small, about 4.5m, some of the bigger ones can be nearly 8m and much bigger in bulk.

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3. Auger the Digital Whale Shark

 

My whale shark experience, continued from above....

David takes a certain number of divers / snorkelers, the money they pay for the trip pays for the fuel, tags and aircraft time. The divers also help out with the effort by taking photos and making observations. The main purpose is to tag sharks and capture data, to this end David enters the water first, then the divers enter soon after, seeing a shark is not always guaranteed. However on the two days that I was there we say about 15 sharks, 10 on the first day and 5 on the second.

The second day was the best, we say not only several whale sharks but a manta ray too. The divers wear only snorkelling gear, the aircraft calls in, "contact, 300m bearing 45 right", half of us put on our snorkelling gear and sat with our legs over the side. David readies his Hawaiian sling, a type of harpoon with an rubber loop that gives it power, on the end a titanium pointed tip attatched to a tag. When the animal is tagged the point is left in the animals flesh and a large tag is attatched by wire. This sounds painful but the shark's skin is so thick it is like a mosquito bite!

As we get closer anticipation rises "on your bow, 30m......10m...",

"aller, a droit, " shouts the creole deck hand.

David enters the water feet first, takes a quick look , starts swimming and calls us in. I'm sitting right next to him and need to coaxing, I enter the water with the minimum amount of splashing I can, holding up my camera so that the water proof seals enter the water slowly and don't stress the seal.

I start swimming as fast as possible after David, camera held out in front, my large free diving fins pushing me along rapidly , the shark is moving away from us seemingly slowly, its great tail barely moving yet pushing it along at a rate that makes us puff and pant.

David sees that its not tagged, takes a look to estimate its dorsal fin height, meanwhile the other divers are catching up, but the great fish isn't going to stay around much longer, he dives and harpoons a tag into its back, it speeds up for a second, then settles back into its seemingly slow pace, turns to the left and spots another diver, it swims past him and back underneath all the divers, then slowly sinks getting smaller as it sinks and fades slowly into the blue!

The divers whoop with joy! Then we make our way back to the boat, the other half of the team swaps sides on the boat taking their place ready to dive with the next shark as we take a breather.

That is a typical encounter. Some of the others we had were even more incredible! The most impressive was on the second day, one whale shark was curious enough about us to stay 30 minutes with the whole of the group, coming up to many of us in turn. I spent a long time swimming with him, often leaving him and swimming to one side away from the others, whereby he would then come to see me or whoever else was on their own, often coming right up to me as I swam that there was barely any water underneath me and his huge head...and this was a baby.

Make no doubt though, these are the gentlest and loveliest of animals I've ever come across, bigger than elephants, but elephants can be dangerous, whale sharks were so gentle that on several occasions as I dived down and swam next to it or over the top of it I would keep up for a few seconds, then fall back since I was holding my breath, as I passed right through the arc of its tail, the first few time I would try to miss its tail, before later realising each time it actually stopped moving its tail as it sensed I was next to it, he would then glide until I was clear, his tail missing a beat and then continue his voyage.

IT REALLY ANNOYS ME THAT THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO'S ONLY VIEW OF THIS NOBLE ANIMAL IS THAT ITS A COUPLE OF DOZEN KILOS OF SHARK FIN FOR SOME RICH IDIOT'S SOUP.

DO NOT BUY OR PATRONISE ANY RESTAURANT THAT SELLS SHARKFIN SOUP.

The good news is that the Republic of the Seychelles was one of the first countries to protect this wonderful animal, now it is protected in many countries. But in many others it is still hunted. Britain likewise has protected the second biggest fish, the Basking Shark!.