The day we had waited a looong week for had finally arrived, and it was perfect weather. There was a light cloud cover in the morning and blue skies and sunshine for most of the day. Sadly there was a good sized swell once we got out of the protection of the reef, so Dunc’s enjoyment of the day went downhill (or overboard?) after that. The medication he had taken wore off too quickly and even though he took more, it just wasn’t coping. The good news is the meds worked for Lexie and Angus and I are rarely affected so 3 out of 4 of us thoroughly enjoyed the entire day! Look at the photos and its obvious through Dunc when they were taken – if he’s bright and bubbly it was early in the day. Smiling but miserable inside, then it was later. Poor guy. The things you do for love…
Leaving aside the seasickness, it was an insanely great day. We saw sooooo much wildlife. The intention was to snorkel on the reef and then swim with the enormous whale sharks, but our tour was so much more! We saw an incredible amount of wildlife from the boat. We started with a huge bright yellow sea snake, moved on to a green sea turtle, then made our way up in size to a humpback whale! We have been desperately looking for whales since the Great Australian Bight back in April. Poor Angus was starting to worry that he would never see one and I was a bit worried too. But this day MORE than allayed our fears. We saw two single humpbacks and another pair of them too! Most of the time we saw their backs as they breached but twice we got to see that gorgeous tail flick. We could tell it was going to happen as their back breaches higher in the water, so the anticipation would build. The whole boat would go “Ooh! Whooooooaaaaaa. Yay!” Such a lovely special experience for the group of us on board.
In addition to the humpback whales, we were lucky enough to see a pair of minke whales too. They really looked like enormous black dolphins, when compared to the lumpy humpbacks.
We also saw a dugong, which is always described as the cow of the sea. It’s kind of like a pug dog crossed with a dolphin. I always thought they were lumbering and slow, but the one we were watching had a huge shovel-nosed ray swim by and it shot off like a bullet. Gosh they can swim fast!
The best part of our animal watching experience was the last turtle we saw – a leatherback turtle! These animals are so critically endangered that of our entire crew of 7, only 2 had ever seen one before. It stayed near the boat for some time and stuck its head up twice. They can grow to the size of a small car, but this one was ‘only’ about 1m across its shell. The crew on board were nearly wetting their pants with excitement which infected the rest of us, so we are well aware how special this experience was.
And THEN there was our actual in-water experiences! We started with a snorkel on the reef. To be honest, it wasn’t as good as our previous days. It’s really an exercise in gearing up and entering and exiting the water. The current was quite strong where we were, and Lexie was particularly grumpy at having to swim so hard to stay still, let alone have to swim against it to get back to the boat. We all knew the hand signals for help, but I had the lovely David swim up and offer to take Lexie back before I even contemplated asking. Angus got a tow back to the boat as well. Dunc and I make sure we always have a noodle with us. The children don’t want one (and just quietly neither do we) but sometimes they NEED one to rest for a bit, so we will ALWAYS have one for them. And boy. I could not lift myself onto the boat after that swim! It was sooo tough. Horrible. Fortunately there was time enough to rest and recover before we had to get in for our first whale shark swim.
And WHAT a swim! These creatures are so incredibly graceful. When we first jumped in, Lexie got a shock at the fact that she couldn’t see the bottom. I was amazed at the vision of the rays of light piercing the beautiful blue water – it was just gorgeous! Then she was freaking out and the guide was pointing and shouting and all was complete chaos. I had my head up and down and couldn’t see a thing and THEN. I saw it. And Lexie saw it. And she stopped freaking out and we started swimming and all was insanely right in the world.
The rangers have very strict rules about interacting with whale sharks and we had been clearly told about how and where to swim. You need to keep 3m away from the heads and bodies and 4m away from the tail, which swishes back and forth in the most mesmerizing way. But I confess to forgetting everything and just swimming. Thank goodness I had Lexie screeching “4metres! 4metres!” in my ear. Sounds are a little distorted through a snorkel, and I was so enthralled it took a while for me to actually comprehend what she was saying. Then I was able to do the right thing, back off a bit and try to swim alongside, rather than around its tail.
Our group of 20 passengers was divided in 2, and each group was able to swim with a whale shark 3 or 4 times. We spent hours cruising the ocean. They have a spotter plane who flies above and radios the captain to tell them where to find the sharks. We saw 8 whale sharks in total, but only got to swim with 4 of them. The other 4 dived down too low when we got close. They each have personalities or moods. The first one was pretty good, but my favourite was the second whale shark. It was so chilled-out it was barely moving through the water. We were able to swim around it and see the mouth. Angus and I swam a third time together, but Lexie had had enough and poor Dunc was feeling rotten by then.
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