Cruising with Whale Sharks! By Lachlan

Today was the big day, and everyone was bouncing off the walls with excitement. I just couldn’t help thinking, OH MY GOSH! We arrived at the Tantibiddi Boat Ramp at 7:40am and went on a tender to the 19m boat which was painted in aboriginal art. We had our snorkeling gear sorted out before we headed out past the reef to have a practice swim in deep water. Our guide Gabbo was Italian and a World Champion Free Diver, which was pretty cool. We were able to see some cool fish before Gabbo realised that we had got too close to the reef so we swam back to the boat. Then we were ready to see some whale sharks.

Super Snorkelers with Gabbo the spotter

Shep, our host and deckhand was explaining the procedure for swimming with the whale sharks when our skipper Dave shouted out, ‘Spotter in!’ This meant that a whale shark had been spotted and that the ‘spotter’ had to get in and give the position of the shark. Shep then had to rush through the instructions before we jumped into the water with our gear on. I turned around in the water and then the whale shark loomed out of the dark of the seawater with its giant mouth open. ‘Woah!’ I shouted into my mask. For a second it felt like my heart had stopped beating. The shark just glided on past me, not even giving me a second glance. It was such an amazing feeling swimming alongside the shark with the little suckerfish taking protection from the 6m shark.

Shep giving us some last minute instructions

They are big aren't they?

This was the 6 metre shark

From then on it was in and out over and over again. One time I dived in and saw myself facing a TEN METRE LONG whale shark. Its body was ginormous and it was incredibly fat. I was overwhelmed by the sheer size of its body and the tail dwarfed me with ease. It was with great regret that I got out of the water but a few minutes later Dave shouted out, ‘OCEAN MANTA RAY!!’ ‘Brilliant,’ I thought. I jumped in and literally 1m away, was the graceful manta. Sailing its way through the ocean it was a privilege to watch. It was a giant beast, its wingspan would have been over 3 metres long. The manta was such a beautiful animal and I was sad to see it dive into the depths of the ocean.

In all we saw 8 whale sharks and 3 manta rays. This was so amazing and I felt so lucky that we had seen all these wonders of the ocean in just 4 hours. Once we’d had lunch, Dave went chasing humpback whales. We were watching a pod zooming along when all of a sudden a humpback leaped full body length out of the water just 100 metres away and turned a graceful arc back into the ocean. Everyone was stunned by this. I’d never seen a whale up close and to see one in full detail was just spectacular. Once we’d crossed back into the reef we anchored in a patch of dazzling turquoise water. We were getting our snorkels on when Shep said, ‘Do you want to jump off the roof of the boat?’

Even Gracie jumped with dad looking on

‘Yes, please,’ was the answer so we climbed up and launched ourselves into the water. It was awesome doing spins and bombs into the ocean. After thoroughly jumping ourselves out, we went for a snorkel. The fish were beautiful and the corals were in all shapes and sizes. We saw trumpet fish, spectacular wrasse and a juvenile angelfish, which had the most amazing colours I’d ever seen.  Some of the corals were even shaped like mushrooms and filled with tiny fish that were too hard to watch darting in and out. Unfortunately, and with much regret we had to get back into the boat and head back to the boat ramp. We had a big group photo then we had to say goodbye to Shep, Gabbo, Dave, Jay and Ben, and head back to Yardie Creek.