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Published: December 9th 2007
Is it a whale? Is it a shark? No, it's a whale shark! Despite its name, it is neither a whale nor a shark, but in fact the largest fish in the world, and we FINALLY got to swim alongside one!
There are only a few places in the world where whale sharks hang out, and Mozambique is one of them. We spent the majority of our time in the seaside town of Tofo, Mazombique's main backpacker haunt. Our little rickety bungalow was perched on a sand dune right above the beach, and even had a sand floor. On three mornings out of the five, we went diving. The first day we dived a site named Hogwarts. Scott and I thought that, being Africa, it
really ought to be named Warthogs! We'd really been hoping to see mants rays and at the last minute, during our three minute safety stop, two rays emerged from the blue and curclied around us several times. We thought they were baby mantas at the time but later were told that they were actually devil rays - oops! Maybe they shouldn't have ever told us!? The 30 minute boat ride out to the dive was
fun in itself as we saw a whale and calf, a turtle, and dolphins. The boat dropped us in front of the dolphins and we got to get in and snorkel with them.
Our two other dives were spent on Manta Reef, famous for, you guessed it, mantas! Unfortunately, we still didn't see any but the dives were good anyway with lots of huge groupers, eels, and dense clouds of schooling fish. However, the jewel in the crown was the whale shark. On the way back from our middle dive, the skipper suddenly cut the engine and calmly told everybody to get their masks, snorkels, and fins on. We were so excited! They positioned the boat and told everybody to slip into the water so as not to scare it away. I swam around the back of the boat and suddenly a huge wide mouth was coming straight for me! It hung out and swam slowly and gracefully, letting us stay with it for about 15 minutes, before it suddenly descended and disappeared before our very eyes. Definitely a highlight!
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Andi
non-member comment
You are Jinxed...
....when it comes to seeing Manta Rays!! But, wow - a whale shark, cannot even begin to imagine how amazing that must have been. Besides, am sure the Manta's will be waiting for you in Thailand.