Swam With Whaleshark!! Yes!!!

[verona]

It was so exciting. We had just got back into the boat after our dive in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Watamu in Kenya. We all dekitted and started back for shore when the skipper shouts that he has seen a whaleshark. We all look out and I see nothing. Everyone else seems to see it somewhere at the surface except me. :-( Skipper moves along a bit and tells us to jump in the water. So at the double, we don fins, masks and snorkels and jump in. I get directions from the boat and fin like mad and there it is! Fantastic!! A majestic whaleshark about 5feet below the surface gliding along (quickly). It was about 6-7 metres long. I swam alongside it for a while and took a few snatched photos - it was quite hard while finning so fast to keep up. I also managed a quick bit of video which you can see at

http://www.sublimescubaphotography.com/whaleshark.mov

This clip is 12 seconds long and is 4mb so best if you have broadband. It is not the best video in the world but it is a great memento for me. ALso I have attached a pic. I didn''t have my wide angle on me so I couldn't get it all in. After a minute or so, it outswam us and disappeared into the blue. It was an amazing experience. We were all buzzing back on the boat. Then just when we had dekitted and started off again, skipper shouts that there is another one!! Woo Hoo! He drifts over to it and it is swimming right beside us at the surface. This one, however, dives away so we didn't get the chance to swim with it.

It was a fantastic experience and I had always wanted to see a whaleshark. We weren't looking for one so to have two just appear was fantastic. The one I swam with was so elegant and so powerful. To be so close to something that magnificent was the highlight of my diving in Kenya.

 

[Spoon]

man that must have been a rush! would love to do that one of these days

 

[yhuubert]

Just came back from my dive trip to Watamu, Kenya and the same thing happened to me as well, on October 28th. It was the first dive out of 10 on our trip, the sea was very rough and almost half of the people got badly seasick after the dive. We were coming back from a dive site called Brain Coral when the captain saw the shark. Most of the people felt too sick to get into the water, except for me and 2 local people. I did not even have a snorkel, just a mask and fins. The shark was about 2 meters deep, so I followed it and swam just above it. Diving deeper, I could pat it on the back and hold its dorsal fin. The skin felt quite strange, unlike any material I have ever touched. It all lasted may be for a minute or two, but was a lot of fun.

Lets assume it was the same whale shark that you saw

We did not see any other whale sharks during the whole following week, but there were a lot of dolphins on the surface and some also during the dives.

 

[alcina]

Fabulous! I never get tired of swimming with these guys and unexpected sightings are always something special!

Although I gotta say to yhuubert - hands off!

You might want to send your photos/details about your encounter in to www.photoid.whaleshark.org - they are getting a pretty good library going!

 

[Babydamulag]

Whale Shark diving in the Philippines....meet us in Culasi May 2006!!!

 

[redseaalien]

I swam with a whale shark the second or third dive of my open water class, it was amazing! The first day of the class, it came in before everyone had dive gear, just after we'd done the skin dive, and in my confusion as to why everyone was running into the water when someone yelled "shark!" rather than out of it (not knowing exactly what kind of shark it was for a while, and even when I found out, I still didn't know that whale sharks were more "whale" than "shark" in the "likely to eat you" department), I didn't follow them, so when I realized that it was something you want to go into the water and see, someone had swiped my snorkel and there were none left! So I was really happy when it came back the second day and I had a chance to get up close and swim with it...just mad I didn't have an underwater camera so couldn't take any pics!

It was pretty much a "to hell with the class, every man for himself!" thing, you were in the bathroom between dives or otherwise not there and ready, and someone grabs your gear, you're SOL, nobody's going to wait for you! I happened to be conveniently by the instructor and my scuba gear that time, so I got lucky, but after we came back to the shore I told him I didn't think my fins were giving me enough power and asked if I could swap them for another pair, because I could barely keep up with him on the swim out...he said no, nothing wrong with the fins, he was just swimming like hell himself!

Didn't know at the time I was so unlikely to get that close to another one again, else I'd probably have twisted my knee joints kicking myself for not having a camera with me, and been unable to finish the course...better to do that when not diving, I think.