24. Swimming with Whale Sharks at Ningaloo Reef.

Swimming with the world's biggest fish in Australia's largest fringing reef out from Exmouth, Western Australia was astounding.  The area is a popular holiday destination for Whale Sharks to relax and make best of the opportunity of swimming with inquisitive snorkelling humans.
Whale Sharks can grow up to 18m.  The Ningaloo Whale Sharks are generally six to eleven metres in length. The ones we swam with were estimated at 9m long.

A majestic, gentle, beautiful behemoth.  Note the comparative size of the swimmers.
We were accompanied by a professional photographer for the underwater activity.
Due to the marine environment, a water mark is seen on all her photos. 

But first the background news.
Ningaloo Reef is Australia's largest fringing coral reef (as opposed our eastern Barrier Reef which extends way out from land between 15 and 150kms), is one of the healthiest and most accessible reefs in the world, and is one of only two coral reefs on the western side of a continent.
Also due to being located off a desert, less runoff means clearer water than most coral reefs.  The reef runs for 260kms, extends out only a short distance from shore and is generally less than 2kms out, and has an average depth of less than 5m.

The Ningaloo Fringing Reef complete with photo bombing whale. 

Our team for the day included a boat, spotter plane, back-up crew, aquatic camera lady, and lots of initial courage to slip into the unknown full of creatures far bigger and more adept at swimming than us.

Our boat.
Ideal for speed and maneuverability, plus facility to offload numerous swimmers at once.
 Emergency exits can be found all around on both decks. 

Heading out in search of the Whale Sharks.
Being fish, they are harder to find than whales, as they don't come to the surface to breathe. 

Our photographer
It was thought our camera sealed in a Glad sandwich bag would not be up to the job. 

The back-up pickup rubber duck followed our every move but was not required. 

Blue and black are trendy these days. 

Preparation for disembarkation once the "go go go" signal is given.

Whale Sharks are filter feeders and cruise with mouths open feeding on plankton, including krill and copepods. They are incredibly graceful, docile, beautiful giants gliding through the oceans. They are also more difficult to follow than whales, as being fish, they don't need to surface as whales do to breathe. Hence the spotter planes to find their great form from above.

A practice snorkel in the coral reefs followed later by a drift snorkel over reefs showed all sorts of corals, coloured fish and rays.

Fish of all sizes.  From the smallest to the largest. 

Coral of assorted colours and types.
Swimming style exhibited here by the bubbles of the swimmer is so different to a Whale Shark's effortless grace.  

Carrol and Don enjoying weightlessness.
H2O is the way to go!

Spotter planes circled overhead in search of the graceful slow moving vacuum cleaners of the ocean. Once spotted, they would direct the boat in front of the direction of travel of the Whale Sharks, having groups of up to 10 swimmers in the water at any time, waiting to be joined by the whale shark. They seemed totally unfazed by the swimmers in the water.
Initial fear of such a massive creature swimming in such close proximity was soon replaced with an almost surreal feeling taking over.

Without eyes in the sky, the task of  finding the Whale Sharks for our offloading in front of their line of travel would have been so much more difficult. 

Carrol and Don both swam together for the first encounter, but unfortunately missed getting any photo coverage by the photographer.
On a subsequent swim with another whale shark the professional photographer with the tour boat took the following shots:

Out of the gloom. 

Denizens of the deep showdown!
Don graciously back pedalling to give way.  

All good!
Not viewed as krill. 

Note the comparative size to Don swimming about 3m this side of the Whale Shark.
We are going to need a bigger gaff as well as a bigger boat. 

Juvenile males enjoying swimming together.  

Impressive long slow movement of the tail for him, requiring a quick swim with flippers for us to try to keep pace.

Time to drop into the depths. 

All in all, we were astounded at the grace and serenity of these brilliant placid fish.
Dolphins and turtles also joined our voyage of discovery.

Turtles evidently removing barnacles from his and her underbellies in the lead up to egg laying. 

Dolphins riding the pressure waves at the bow as we headed out in our quest.  

The lack of runoff from the desert was the main reason for the exceptional clarity of the water. 

To finish off our day, we were dropped off to drift snorkel over a reef while the boat skirted around in deeper water before picking us up.
Roll calls were completed after every swim. 

We carried on further south a few days later to Coral Bay, also part of the Ningaloo Reef for more land based drift snorkelling plus the opportunity of something equally majestic and of incredible size.
Gigantic Manta Rays with a wing span of 4m.  More next blog.

Trusting all is well.
Regards, Don and Carrol.