photo by Bob Caruso

Water carries sound better than air. So you would think that I’d remember the sounds made by the shark that was the size of a school bus swimming slowly towards me. The only sound I remember is silence.

Whale sharks are the worlds largest shark, they are also the worlds largest fish, however they are not a true whale. Growing up to 15 meters, or 50 feet in length it is an experience like few others to swim with these gentle giants. For anyone interested in wildlife, one of the most exciting experiences is to examine a wild creature at close quarters. The larger the creature the greater the excitement. This puts swimming with whale sharks into the category of one of the last remaining wonders of the world.

I was wearing only snorkel gear, and a pair of boardies. Less than nine feet under the water’s surface, and about six feet away passed something out of another world. Greyish tan in the light shining onto the blue waters, it had several bony ridges that more resembled a dinosaur than a shark. Speckled by white spots and markings it would have been cute ... if hadn’t dwarfed the 35 foot cabin cruiser we had taken out to the reef looking for her.

Until the last decade the whale shark was considered rare and elusive. Only a few fortunate divers and fishermen had the lucky break of encountering a whale shark in the wild. Along Ningaloo Reef in the remote North West of Australia whale sharks are regular visitors. Each year, just days after the mass spawning of corals on the reef near Exmouth in April and early May, whale sharks appear in the waters along the front (or ocean side) of the reef, remaining for up to a month. They come to feast on the explosion of marine life that eat the coral spawn. Whale sharks are not aggressive, and like the second largest of all sharks, the slightly smaller basking shark, cruise the oceans feeding on concentrations of zooplankton, small fish and squid. This is similar to the feeding method of many whales, although instead of baleen the whale shark’s mouth contains over 300 rows of tiny teeth, but they neither chew nor bite their food, instead filtering organisms out of the water they pass through their gills. It is estimated that they can filter over 1,500 gallons of water an hour.

photo by Eric Havel

The whale shark eyed me as she swam by. I kicked my legs to keep up with her, even though she barely seemed to be moving her gigantic tail. The boat had dropped six of us off in front of the shark so we wouldn’t have to catch up to her. She totally ignored us as she swam through the water with her four foot mouth open wide. After all, the whale shark is used to being accompanied by an entourage, a wide assortment of fish keep her company. Remoras and suckerfish cling to the belly of the shark. A small “cloud” of juvenile Trevally often swims in the pressure wave in front of her adding some bright color to the group. Large Cobia (Black Kingfish) use the whale shark as a stalking horse, hiding underneath her and darting out to attack their prey. It is almost like a moving reef.

Our day had began early in the morning when we met Captain Peter O’Halloran. He took us to the Takashi, the boat that would be shuttling us around Ningaloo Reef. Once we had made our way out past the reef we all jumped in for a quick snorkel to cool off and get a feel for swimming in the open ocean. It is a very different feeling to be in water where you can see 50ft down, but still see nothing but a great blue void. We were lucky enough to have a pair of large manta rays come up to curiously check us out. They darted and dived among us, close but never close enough to touch.

Later after our first whale shark swim, we had another whale shark, this one an immature male, come swimming up to the stern of our boat. He came up almost completely vertically, through our exhaust bubbles all you could see was the large open mouth rising out of the deep. He stayed near the stern of our boat just checking us out for about fifteen minutes before starting to move off, at which point we all jumped in for another chance to encounter a whale shark on it’s own terms.

I’ve never tired of swimming with giants of the deep since my first encounter with them in 2000. Despite being so intrigued by the fascinating ecology of Ningaloo Reef that I returned to work for Pete as a Whale Shark Guide, one of the greatest pleasures continues to be taking friends who have no previous experience of whale sharks or even of scuba diving and introducing them to one of the worlds most awe inspiring experiences. Many of them would normally never have dreamed of jumping overboard into the open ocean, outside the protective reef where your vulnerable to the open ocean. For most of them it turned out to be such and exhilarating experience that they were on a high for at least a month after.

It is hard to describe how one feels after such an experience. Many of the giant creatures in the world have become extinct, or are so rare as to only be seen in zoos. Elephants, rhinoceros, giraffes, large whales we can be viewed from a distance; there is no other giant creature on this planet that we can observe and interact with at such close quarters. There can be little doubt that swimming with a whale shark is the ultimate marine experience.