Swimming with Whale Sharks

We have been playing tourist here in Exmouth while we wait on a good weather window for our next leg, 250 miles south to Carnarvon.  One thing that I always wanted to experience in Australia was swimming with the whale sharks off the Ningaloo Coast.  While we were working in Perth, various colleagues did the tour and always spoke highly of the adventure.



Eric and a whale shark the size of a city bus

So, on Thursday, we ventured off with King’s Ningaloo Reef Tours and got to swim with the gentle giants ourselves.  What an experience it was!  We are so glad that we did this.  Here is a video from Kings , albeit not from our exact trip,  but it is a really a good summary of our day.

The group of 10 people jumped in the water and the bus sized whale shark cruised by, just below the surface, really oblivious to our presence. Swimming above the water, we could not see the whale shark, but once you put your head in the water, looking though your diving mask it was like being in an IMAX theater.  WOW, they are SO HUGE!  What an amazing animal...and we got to see two that day.



We saw many humpback whales on our day trip with Kings Ningaloo Reef Tours.

Whale Sharks are up to 60 feet long and the largest known fish.  Filter feeders, they live on plankton and other small sealife in the open tropical oceans of the world.  We also saw several humpback whales, turtles and several species of dolphins.  The team from Kings Ningaloo Reef Tours did a fantastic job, we really had a great day out on the reef.