Exmouth 27 June

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Wow! What a day!

I had a poor night's sleep due to the excitement of diving with the whale sharks. They did not let me down. The morning started well, no need for the alarm I'm up showered and breakfast before getting dropped off at the dive shop around 7:30. Ironically I was the last one to arrive. After saying farewell to Sandy it was into the minibus and off to the dive boat. 16 paying divers (myself included) and 6 crew, which included a marine biologist as well as a professional underwater photographer. All crew had a minimum of instructor level diving credentials. After a 30 minute drive we were at the boat and loaded on. A 30 minute "test" dive to check the competency of all divers. All OK and we were back on board.

Shortly after the spotter plane had found the first whale shark. We were on our way! A few minutes later I am sitting on the edge of the boat waiting for the dive masters OK to enter the water. The OK comes and I'm in the water and powering towards the guide who has the shark in sight. After the 50m or so sprint, there it was, all 5.5m of whale shark gracefully moving through the water (I'd put some of my own pictures up but I am really disappointed with the underwater camera results). I did order a DVD of our dive so I'm sure I'll have some photographic memories from them. After around 3-5 minutes of swimming along side this graceful giant we are asked to stop and regroup. The next dive crew has it's turn.

On the way back to the boat I was still trying to comprehend what I have just seen. Whilst it had been on my "bucket list" for many years to experience the dive with the largest fish on earth, the whale shark surpassed my wildest dreams of how big and graceful these big spotty fish really are.

Back on board the boat the feeling was shared between all on board over a biscuit and cordial. No sooner were we downing the drinks and the radio crackled through, another whale shark...bigger than the last one heading south not far from our current location. Engines fire up and we're off again. The heart pumping quickly from the excitement. Within what seemed like a split second the flippers, mask and snorkel are on again and I'm sitting on the side of the boat waiting once again for the OK. We're on again, another sprint to the guide and wow! This one is massive, it is estimated between 7.5 - 8m! Given that it works out roughly 1 tonne per meter that's a lot of fish! It turns out to be a male approximately 35 years old. They live until around 100 in the wild so this one is in his prime. When he opened his mouth to feed on the plankton etc in the water my eyeballs nearly touched my mask. I could have layed sideways in the mouth without even touching the sides. It must have been at least 2.5m in width! An awesome spectacle!

A few more dives on whale sharks later and we notice out to sea a bit further (1-2 k's) a humpback has just done a huge breach. We're off for some observations from the boat, and not in the water for the humpbacks. There are lots of whales to be seen but no more breaching. From there it is back closer to the coastline for lunch on the boat. Straight after lunch it was time to jump in again. This time over one of the many coral gardens of the Ningaloo reef. Once again an abundance of fish and coral, it all starts to become rather blasé after a while but rest assured, it is spectacular.

From there it was back to the dock for the ride back to the dive shop and collection by Sandy. A quick stop at the fuel depot for refueling the car and the bottle shop for personal restocking before we head off in the morning to Karijini.

Sandy had had a pretty quiet day, also exactly what she also wanted. Lots of reading, some shopping and to her credit some washing.

Dinner tonight was take away Chinese. Not one I would recommend.

As of tomorrow we will be out of internet and phone range. I'll still be writing the blogs but will not be able to publish on line for around 1 week when we arrive home.

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