Ningaloo Reef

I went for a bit of a boat trip today, 5 kilometres off shore past Ningaloo Reef. I got to see some migrating whales (both humpback and southern right), I got to see a dugong up close which was pretty special (I'd only managed to see one from a distance in Monkey Mia). There were heaps of turtles although they dived the moment they saw us plus several flying fish and a sea snake. The most impressive thing however is I saw 4 whale sharks and then I went swimming with them.

I had planned, what a joke, let me start again. I knew that the whale sharks would be in season when I would be in Western Australia. I therefore hoped that without too much effort I might be able to organise to do the swimming with the whale sharks thing. Well I did, what can I say but an awe inspiring, frightening and humbling experience all in the one big rush. Let me tell how it went down. 

I'd booked the whale shark cruise when I was in Perth, I was told they book out early and if the weather is foul (and it was at the time) the trip would get cancelled so make sure I did it on my first day in Exmouth so it could be rescheduled if things went pear shaped. Well it was a perfect sunny day of 25 degrees, a bit windy, but I was still wearing shorts and a polo shirt. 

I got picked up from my lodge at 7.20am (I know, this shows how much I wanted to do it), then it was a 45 minute drive to board the boat that would take us whale shark hunting. First we were ferried to it on a glass bottom boat and we were given all the safety malarcky that is necessary in this day and age. Then we kitted up and did a shallow water snorkel to prove that we could all swim and use the equipment correctly. A very pleasant way to spend an hour. We practised our embarking and disembarking in kit and then headed out for the real reason we were all there.

There were 20 participants, 14 of whom were British backpackers. There were a few oldies (myself included) plus a couple of singles which gave me someone to talk too for the eight hour day. They had a spotter plane up and we criss crossed the Indian Ocean a seemingly endless number of times along with 8 other boats all trying to find the whale sharks. In that time from about 11.00am to 3.30pm we saw all of the above mentioned wildlife. We had pretty well given up and thought we would be back again tomorrow when the plane radioed through that a whale shark had been spotted.

We kitted up and five minutes later we were all in the water looking for whale sharks. Let me explain what that's like. In our case we were three kilometres from the shore with a coral reef separating us from the coast line. We were wearing our swimmers, a snorkel, some goggles and some flippers. The water was a balmy 28 degrees but more impressively where we jumped in it was almost exactly 100 metres deep. Then the boat pulls away and you are on your own. Just you, the whale sharks and whatever else might be out there in the Indian Ocean. Visibility was about 10 metres so you couldn't see anything in the water past that distance. As one of our group (an experienced diver) said this is what it would be like to be ship wrecked.

It doesn't take long to realise that here in the open ocean, wearing nothing more than your safety swimmers and snorkelling gear that you are not top of the food chain any more. So putting any thought aside about what other creatures there are in the water with you its off to find the whale sharks. Now you can't swim faster than them so the boat drops you about 500 metres in front of them and you position yourself either side of the beast and wait for them to swim to you. You then swim along beside the shark as best you can. They swim close to the surface and are plankton and algae eaters so they are not a threat to us (unless of course you get flicked by its tail). They seem to totally ignore us, but when they have had enough of our company they either dive, roll on their side or just speed up and it is good bye whale shark.

Now with visibility so low its quite a rush when a 5 metre fish appears in your field of vision out of the depths. This is doubly so if they have their mouth set to hoover mode and they are filtering plankton. The one I saw had a mouth opening of over a metre and it would be a very brave person indeed to say that it doesn't make you wonder what the hell you are doing there in the first place.

After the rush of the first one (it was over in about 2 minutes) we were very lucky that another one was swimming along about 500 metres behind it. So we stayed in the water and positioned ourself to do the same thing. 

We then jumped back aboard our boat and did the same thing again two more times. So all in all we saw an impressive 4 whale sharks in their domain. It was a total rush on so many levels. I have to say I was close to the edge of my physical endurance doing this. I felt every one of my 45 years and if the lodge hadn't been full of drunken buffoons I would have slept for a solid 10 hours straight. Right now if you asked me would I do it again I would probably say no, but it wouldn't take too much effort to change my mind. Quite seriously however if I was going to do it again I would get in a bit more swimming practice, preferably in the open water and then you would have to chain me up to stop me.