Pilbara, June 3-10 2004
Day 3 - Ningaloo Reef
The dampness of the next morning wasn't such a shock, and we didn't have time to pander to it. We needed to be at the dive shop at 8:30am in order to get to the boat. We duly did so and after getting kitting up with decent flippers - we only have short boogie boarding fins of our own, which are fine but don't give you a lot of speed in the water - we walked down to the beach. There was only 6 of us - me, Tina, an Aussie couple and a Japanese couple - so we all jumped into a little dingy which took us to the boat moored a short way out into the bay. We were greeted by our host for the day, Fraiser, and a very excitable dog called Grace.
The plan for the day was necessarily vague because whale sharks are unpredictable, but the gist was we'd chung out to the outer part of the reef a few miles off shore where we'd test our equipment and try to spot a few creatures. At about 10am a plane would go up and start looking for whale sharks. When it saw one we'd get a radio call, and we'd go up to see it. If a whale shark put in an early appearance we might get chance to see some humpback whales or do some snorkeling. If not, we might be hanging around for most of the day. It all depended on nature.
First stop came not long after we set off when a school of dolphins appeared. After watching them for a while we headed off to a area known for turtles. Tina loves turtles and we were impressed - nay, amazed - to see the speed they get up to. One swam in front of the boat and it must have been traveling faster than I could run.
Then it was time to catch some squid. The boat came to a stop and suddenly a whole bunch of squid appeared in the water in front of us. How convenient! Catching a squid involves chucking a red lure into the water and pulling it back in. I have no idea what squid eat, but presumably it's red and shaped like the lure, because as soon as one of the squid sees the lure, it chases after it. The fact the water was crystal clear was something of a boon since we could see exactly what we were doing. We could see the lure, and we could see a squid break away from its group and start to chase. When the squid catches the lure it grabs it, at which point it gets a mouthful of hooks and finds itself being pulled through the water. Alarmed by this turn of events it starts pumping out black ink, but to no avail. Within a few seconds it's in the net and caught. The last thing it does is squirt more ink at its assailment, which goes all over the bow of the boat. Not that that helps the squid much. Hmmm, calamari!
Next stop was to see a couple of humpback whales - "humpies". We couldn't get too close, and my little digital camera isn't really the thing for capturing shots of such creatures, but I did manage to get a shot of a whale's fluke.
By now the plane was up, but there was no word from it about whale sharks. Frasier and the crew decided to try a spot of deep sea fishing. No rods required here, just a reel of fishing line bolted to the side of the boat, then hooked and baited with a lump of dead squid. The reels held 70 metres of line so it took a while for them to unwind, and quite a bit longer to pull them back up when a fish took the bait. Once we'd seen a fish caught this way, Tina wandered up to the bow and after a few minutes I went to join her.
I found her sitting with her back against the glass of the cabin so I plonked down beside her. We chatted a bit and listened to the gentle slapping of the water against the boat. Nice. Peaceful. Ahhh.... Then, from the cabin behind us, through the open window, we heard the radio spring to life:
"...shark to the north..."
We both sat bolt upright and span round to look at the radio. (Funny how people turn to look at something that's only a metre away and they can already hear quite clearly.) We saw Pedro, our Captain snatch up the microphone:
"Is that a whale shark?"
Crackle, crackle. "Affirmative, whale shark to the north."
Pedro turned to yell at the crew who were still fishing. "We're on, get them reels up!"
People started moving. The crew started frantically winding in their lines. We'd been briefed to leave our wetsuits and snorkeling kit where we could find it and get to it easily and people immediately started pulling on gear. Tina and I started scrambling down the side of the boat to get to the back where our kit was. As we moved I saw the Japanese couple, who didn't speak much English, and who were sat on the roof of the boat. They'd obviously noted that something was happening, but where clearly bemused about what it might be.
By the time we'd got to the rear deck of the boat the reels were almost in. 70 metres is a lot to wind up in a hurry! As soon as the hooks cleared the water Fraiser shouted to Pedro "They're clear, go!" There was a roar from the engines and the boat surged forwards. Within seconds we we hurtling through the water. The urgency wasn't justified as it turned out. The shark was 15 or 20 minutes to the north of us so we had plenty of time to get our gear together. But after about 5 minutes of high speed Pedro settled the engines back and took a more leisurely pace. Word had come in on the radio that the fish had dived.
Now we had a choice. Keep heading north in the hope that the fish surfaced again, or hang back south hoping that another one would be spotted closer to us. Not much of a choice really; we continued north at a slower pace. Since we were all hungry by now Fraiser got lunch out. As I'd predicted to Tina, it was cold meat salad, with cheese and pasta. I was reluctant to eat and just picked at my plateful. Fraiser spotted my lack of enthusiasm for food.
"What's up, are you not feeling too good?" he asked.
"I feel great," I said, "but I once went snorkeling on a full stomach and it's not an experience I'd care to repeat."
"OK, put your lunch in the cabin for a while and we'll see what the fish does."
Reluctantly I put my plate inside and turned my back on it. I was really hungry, but I knew from experience that swimming straight after a meal made me feel really sick. If this fish resurfaced I intended to enjoy the experience, not see how it reacted to someone puking in front of it! Good call as it turned out. A few minutes later the boat picked up speed again. The shark was back at the top.
Fraiser called us around. "Whale sharks," he explained, "are heavily protected, so we as a crew and you as swimmers with it are controlled by strict guidelines. It's important that we follow procedure so as not to disturb it or upset its patterns."
He went on to explain the way the system works. Basically, the boat approaches the fish from straight ahead - boat and shark going head to head as it were. When the boat is about 30 metres or so from the shark the boat will swing off to the side and out of its way. At that point all the swimmers jump off the back of the boat. This leaves the people in the water with the shark approaching them. As it gets close the swimmers go left or right and watch the fish glide past. Keeping a safe distance from it, the swimmers can swim alongside if they can keep up. Eventually people stop swimming and wait while the boat comes round to pick them all up. Another boat can then drop swimmers while our boat repositions.
It all sounded quite straightforward, but while standing on the back of the boat waiting for the instruction to jump in it suddenly wasn't quite so clear. Sabine, our instructor, made it clear what to do - follow her, get a good look, and then get out of its way! The instruction came, and with the adrenalin pumping, we all jumped in.
When I hit the water there was lots of bubbles and noise, then it quietened down a bit. I stuck my head up to see what was going on. Everyone was heading off to the right! We were obviously not quite in front of it. I started kicking to try to catch up, but each time I looked people were getting further away from me. Frasier was shouting at me from the boat, but I had no idea what he was saying. I went after them again. When I got close I saw Sabine has her hand up out of the water, her signal that she could see it. I stopped kicking, calmed myself down and looked carefully around me.
"S***!" I swore through my snorkel. It was huge! A bit of a tiddler by whale shark standards, at about 6 metres - 20 odd feet - it was still bigger than the boat I'd just jumped off. And it was moving so slowly, so effortlessly. I couldn't see it's tail. The water was cloudy with the plankton and coral spawn the fish was feeding on, so I couldn't see much past its dorsal fin. But it was just like the photos I'd seen: brown with large white spots. I don't have an underwater housing for my camera so I couldn't take photos. Here's a couple I cribbed from the web, to give an idea:
The first one is particularly close to what I saw. Our shark has it's mouth closed and squadron of smaller fish either with it, or around it. I floated there staring at it for a few seconds, then something occurred to me. This thing was as big as a bus, and it was coming straight at me! There wasn't much doubt about who was going to get out of who's way here. I went to my left and the fish slid past. We'd been warned to keep well away from its tail and I could now see why. The tail was moving side to side, not fast, but with enormous power. A swat from that would hurt. I watched it fade from view, and then, much too late, decided I should be swimming after it. It was soon obvious that I wouldn't be able to catch it so, as instructed, I saved my energy for the next swim and waited. The boat came round and picked us all out of the water.
We had 2 more swims with the whale shark. On both those subsequent occasions I kept up with the party and got good long looks at the fish. The final run ended up with everyone on one side, except for Tina and I who had the whole length of the shark to ourselves, so to speak. Much as I'd have liked another couple of goes, they called us in after 3. There were 2 other boats in the same area so we had to wait our turn, and since we'd had to come so far north it was a long trip back. Shame, but these sorts of things always leave you wanting more. We'd done it. We'd been swimming with the largest fish in the oceans. Not many people can claim that...
While we had the whale shark on one side, off in the distance to the other side we had another sight not many people get to see. Another couple of humpback whales where breaching, which is when they heave themselves out of the water and crash back in with an almighty splash. I was, of course, wearing a wetsuit, fins and snorkel, and wasn't in much of a position to run for my camera. Shame that, since they were close enough to get a decent shot even with my little compact camera. Still, I saw it. It was a magical few minutes.
On the way back Pedro got the boat up to full speed so we could get back in time for a quick snorkel on the outer reef. The outer reef was more colourful than the reef close to the shore which we'd seen the day before and there were a lot more fish. Tina and I went round together, the highlight of this swim being the flute fish - long thin fish with very pointy noses. Oh, and the other shark which we saw swimming happily along the bottom. I don't know what type it was, but we were later told all sharks in that area were harmless. It still caused a bit of an eye popping moment though!
Having been dropped off back on the beach at Coral Bay we plodded wearily back to our campsite. It was almost dark by the time we got back so I quickly got the table set up and the kettle on while Tina went for a shower. I also lit the gas lantern we'd borrowed from Carina. This is a remarkable device which sits on top of a BBQ gas bottle basically burning gas to produce light. It's remarkably effective - even on the lowest gas setting it's still blindingly bright. After I'd been fiddling about for a while our new neighbours returned, the girls in the car having had moved on that morning. I heard an male voice with an Australian accent say "what's for dinner then?". I turned and squinted into the darkness, the light from the gas lantern ensuring my eyes were unable to see anything clearly.
"Oh, er, nothing much," I said. Tired as I was, it was the wittiest thing I could come up with. The person retreated into his tent, and shortly afterwards Tina and I did the same thing. We were knackered.
I woke up, on schedule at about 11pm, a troubled person. The voice in the darkness was bothering me. The more I thought about it, the more it sounded familiar. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more it sounded just like Brendan, a friend of ours who we knew was, with his wife Alex, coincidentally heading up to Coral Bay at the same time we were there. I lay in the darkness pondering the issue until Tina woke up.
"I need a pee," she said.
"Yeah, me too."
As we got out of the tent I looked over to see what sort of car our new neighbours had. In the moonlight it looked like something big and silver. "Big and silver" was the closest description I had of Brendan's car. I'd parked alongside it a few times, but never really paid it much attention. After the plod over to the ablutions block and back we got back into the tent and I didn't worry about it too much more. I went out like a light.