Advertisement
Published: February 12th 2015
Edit Blog Post
This morning we decided that it was such a beautiful and calm morning that we would go out again to swim with the whale sharks, knowing we may never be this way again. We shared a boat with a Belgian born guy named Stefano, who was traveling here as part of a year long world tour taking a break from "slavery" as he called work. Stefano had just finished touring Alaska, Canada and the west coast, hitting all our National Parks in between and was on his way to Central and South America. He invited us to visit and stay with him where he lives, which is a small French island off the coast of Madagascar named La Reunion, which he described as "like Hawaii, but more beautiful and way cheaper", SOLD!
We drove around the bay for about an hour, scouting for swells or shark fins poking out of the water. I thought that we were going to be skunked for the day when all of a sudden the captain yells "Aqui, aqui!!!" pointing towards the water on the starboard side. The water was so calm that we could see the entire shark this morning, and it was huge,
bigger than the others we had seen the other day!
We jumped in an swam with him for almost an hour. This shark moved a bit slower, possibly due to his size and/or the time of morning, which allowed us to keep up a bit easier. Just when we'd feel like we were out of breath, he'd slow or sometimes stop just long enough for us to catch our breath. Other times he would dive deep so we could only make out a hazy outline and follow on the surface until he got into view again. A few times we dove down to eye level with him, but every time we did he would turn his gigantic head in our direction and eyeball us. Dennis and I both discussed this later and we both separately got a vibe from him that this annoyed him, just based on his body language. Even though whale sharks have no teeth, they do suck in dozens of gallons of water through their mouths causing a suction that, which I imagine you could be pulled in by. I'm not sure if there has ever been an instance where someone has been mistakenly or intentionally
Smaller shark with prop injuriessucked in and pulled under water before, but it seemed like it could be a possibility. Just as we were about to call it a day he turned on side side and whipped his tail, almost hitting Dennis, and then dove so deep he was out of sight. Dennis was lucky enough to be filming him at this time to capture this moment on video.
We found another shark, this one about half the size and with some propellor damage to his back. We swam with this one for a few minutes before it too disappeared. We ate some last minute fish tacos and hit the road north to Puerto San Carlos and Magdalena Bay.
We drove for about 3 1/2 hours arriving in San Carlos about 1600. Our initial impression was one of a bit of a wrinkled nose. San Carlos is little more than a fishing village full of small shacks lacking any charm. We weren't here for the town but for the whales, but we were hoping for at least a small beach area or walking section in town. It was readily apparent that there was nothing to see on the land here and there
would be no evening strolls in town. We were led to our hotel, Villas Isabella, which was surprisingly quite nice but was surrounded by a high wall with razor wire. We were told to park our car inside because they close and lock the gates at night. This definitely wasn't one of those towns where a room key was optional. We met with the incredibly friendly Capt. Marcos who runs his family business ,Magdalena Bay Whales. He told to be ready at about 0800 the next morning for our full day whale watching, we couldn't wait! Dinner was incredible , it was some of the best shrimp and halibut with garlic and butter we've ever had.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.102s; Tpl: 0.024s; cc: 12; qc: 27; dbt: 0.0556s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb