Finally the day has arrived to swim with the Whale Sharks in glorious Ningaloo. We booked this tour almost three months ago and this day was the earliest date we could get. It is a very popular tour and I feel sorry for anyone that thought that they could just rock up and get on board. Planning my friends, planning....
Did it live up to expectations? Three hundred percent yes! It is probably THE best thing I have ever done in my whole life. It didn't come without a degree of nervousness though. Was my snorkelling and swimming ability able to cope with the open sea? Was it going to be another windy day with waves taller than I am? All those questions were flying through my head last night as I tried to get some sleep. It was wasted worry.
We were picked up from the Ningaloo Caravan Park promptly at 7.20am and the little twenty seater bus was almost full. Julie was our host for today and she told all onboard that rather than leaving from the Tantabiddi Boat Ramp we would be travelling further south to Yardie Creek where a tender would take us to our waiting boat. Our captain had reasoned that with the very strong winds that had been around for the best part of this week, the Whale Sharks would have moved further south. The tour we chose was Kings Ningaloo and the reason we chose this tour was that it had been around the longest and therefore the most experienced team.
Once we were onboard we were all briefed on the snorkelling procedure. Hand signals were explained and we were broken up into two groups. Our two dive instructors were all female and they were just so patient with us all. We also had a professional photographer, also female, who seemed to be everywhere at once taking photographs. I can't wait to see them when she uploads them to the web.
Our first stop was in a shallow reef area where we could all get used to the water temperature as well as our snorkels and flippers. I have to tell you the water was absolutely beautiful and there was no wind at all so hardly a ripple in the water. I was probably the least confident (and probably the oldest 😂) out of everyone on the tour so I was given a lot of expert attention. I am so grateful. Once we had finished snorkelling in the reef area I was fairly confident.
While we were all in the water, up above us the spotter plane was circling and once we were onboard again it was no time at all before the first of many whale sharks had been spotted. By now we all knew the drill of entering the water quickly with our team leader, that meant all being seated on the floor of the boat, snorkels and flippers on, and one by one edging on our bum towards the back of the boat and into the water. I bum flopped into the water, very inelegantly, and straight away was told to grab the floaty that was attached to my team leader and she would help me along. Once we were in the water it was only moments before we were given the command of "heads down" and there right beside us was a most magnificent whale shark. I can't tell you how emotional I felt at this moment but then to make it one of the most memorable moments of my whole life, the whale shark suddenly turned vertical in the water! This is a very rare thing to see and I just wish we could have got it on film but it all happened very fast and it was just lucky that I was in the right place at the right time. Philip was there but too far back to get any GoPro footage. The captain told me later that there was a lot of seaweed in the water and the whale sharks probably mistook it for fish and that is what it was chasing in the vertical position.
Back on board the ship again and I decided that would be my one and only encounter with the whale sharks. Even though I was attached to my team leader you have to move very quickly through the water to keep up and most of the time my leader was towing me! She said that she didn't mind and that it was her job but I knew I was holding her back and she had the rest of the group to consider. Philip however kept going back into the water every time there was another whale shark spotted. I think he did six dives all up and he loved every moment of it. Our captain had made absolutely the right choice of position as we were literally right in the middle of the whale sharks and there was not another boat to be seen. All the other boats were miles to the north of us and didn't spot anywhere near the number that we did.
Being on board the boat was not a hardship for me. I found a perfect sunny seat at the top of the boat behind the captain and he and I became firm friends. He was able to answer a lot of my questions in between keeping an eye on the two groups of swimmers and talking constantly to the spotter plane, and I didn't once think I was in the way. Oh, and did I mention the Humpbacks! They were everywhere and our captain wanted to let everyone go for a swim with them but he was outvoted by his staff 😩.
What a fantastic company Kings Ningaloo is. All the staff bent over backwards to help us and encourage us. They kept trying to entice me back into the water but I knew I would hold the memory of what I saw forever and it couldn't be bettered.
And here is another GoPro video courtesy of my husband.....
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