Ningaloo Reef and Whale-sharks.
[Exmouth/Western Australia] Another killer drive – 1368 kilometers in one day – we got there at midnight. The thing about driving in Australia at night is all the wildlife, kangaroo, emu, camel, horses, cows, goannas seems to go to the nearest road while you try to get through. It’s a dangerous business, especially after a long day.
The temperature kept on rising into the high 30’s, but at least it was not humid. We stayed at the Novotel Ningaloo Resort, which only opened in November last year. It has to be one of the best accommodations in this area, although the internet in the room did not work. Darren the manager arranged for me to use the office connection instead, but somehow we ended up in the local internet cafe for our daily internet fix.
We went snorkeling in Turquoise Bay, but Elizabeth is going to write about that. A day later Christopher and I went diving and in search of the whale-sharks. For this purpose we hired a dive boat from Village Dive in Exmouth and a dedicated and professional crew (see photo). Kelly was our guide for the day and, from right to left, Jason the skipper, Chris deck hand and dive support and Craig – Jack of all trades. I had bought all new dive equipment in Perth, including a 3 mm wet-suit, so I needed some time to to get everything sorted in and out of the water. I nearly had a heatstroke since the water temperature was min. 27 degree Celsius. But we had a great dive otherwise, with as many fish as I have ever seen in one place.
Then we had to make a choice, another dive or try to find a whale shark. We decided the later would be our choice and then looked for about 1.5 hours until finally we found one thanks to Jason and the spotter plane. You are not allowed to dive around these fish, as they will dive when the air bubbles hit them from below.
When I first saw this biggest fish in the sea I must have forgotten to breath, it is an unbelievable sight. Each encounter is only about a 1 – 2 minutes, as “usually” the sharks just keep on going straight. That was until this whale-shark saw me, even so I was trying to keep my distance (3 meters) this fish clearly wanted to meet me, so it altered its course several times until it was less then an arms length away (mind you, not that I had my arm stretched out). It must have realized that there was a real danger that the local water quality could imminently take a turn for the worse, so after what seemed an eternity, it went on it’s way. I had given Kelly my underwater camera, so she took a photo of the incident. She and her husband are professional underwater photographers and videographers.
When we came out of the water, Jason had found another whale-shark for us and we did it all again, this time without incident and so we saw two in one day. We were lucky to have such a great crew and we thank them for a great day.
Just one final note, there are only about 3000 of these wonderful fish left and some countries (China) still kill them – when will we ever learn? If you are interested you can track “my whale-shark” on the ECOCEAN Whale Shark Photo-identification online library.
Tags: Australia, ECOCEAN, Exmouth, hdvunderwater.com, Ningaloo Reef, WA, Village Dive – Exmouth, Wags Kellys, Western Australia, Whale-shark
