Swimming with a whale shark

So I can’t post the videos to this blog so look me up on Facebook as I posted videos of us swimming with a whale shark underwater here in Puerto Escondito in the bay where our boat was moored.  This adolescent whale shark (12 feet or so long) visited the bay every morning for about 4-5 days.  These guys don’t eat meat and they have a mouth about 5 feet wide: they filter food by skimming the water.  We were later told never to touch their tail or approach face to face.  The best place to swim with them is to keep your self just in the middle of them by their side, so they can see you.

It was about 9 am in the morning and we were on deck doing something and our boat neighbors had just finished swimming with it and came over and told us about it.  We quickly dropped everything we were doing and geared up (snorkel style) and got into our dinghy.  The water was so calm we could see the fins “swooshing” by…..Unfortunately the visibility was not great and to be completely honest, it was a little scary to think we would be face to face with something this large….but we had to do it!  Here are a few photos of the fins above water just before we got into the water.  Thus far, this has been the best experience yet!