Coral Bay is a cute little down on the west coast that caters to holidayers who love the water. The beach is gorgeous, although at certain times during the day the tide is so high that there actually is no beach. When there is a beach though it is lovely to just lie on all day, read, drink some goon (boxed wine), and relax. I spent a few days doing that while the rest of the Easyrider group went to Karijini National Park. Once they got back we decided to go swimming with whale sharks. We chose to go with Coral Bay Adventures which cost about $360 but pictures of the trip was provided. There was another less expensive tour but the pictures weren't provided and to purchase them afterword would have ended up costing more in total.
The trip started at 8 am and we were driven to the boat that we were going to be on for the day. There were 20 of us on the tour, 5 of us from Easyrider.The companies in Coral Bay use a spotter plane to find the whale sharks. The plane takes off around 10am and can fly until 3pm, so until the the plane took off we were taken to place to go snorkeling. The snorkeling in itself was pretty amazing, lots of different fishes, some small rays, and beautiful coral.
The Gorgeous Coral
Then we got back in the boat and just started motoring around the area until the plane said they had spotted a whale shark. As we were traveling someone spotted a splash that turned out to be two Humpback whales. We followed them in the boats for about 15 minutes which was really nice. Then our captain decided we should leave them be as they were trucking pretty fast. We continued traveling up the coast and along the way we saw a turtle, a breaching Eagle Ray, lots of dolphins, and a bunch of tuna feeding. Then it was lunch time, which was a smorgasbord of fruit, meat, veggies, and pretty much everything else you could think of. After lunch we still hadn't heard anything from the spotter plane so the captain decided to take us to another snorkel area while we waited.
Food!
We were all getting a little anxious since it was coming up on 2pm and the plane could only stay up until 3pm and we still hadn't seen a whale shark. The tour does offer a second chance option which allows you to go on the tour again another day if you don't see a whale shark the first day. After the second chance though you are out of luck if you don't get to see a whale shark so we really wanted to see one the first time.
The 2nd snorkel was just as amazing, lots of fish again, and apparently a very large shark that I thankfully didn't see, but did cause several people to get out of the water very fast. As soon as we all got out of the water and stripped our wetsuits down to the waist the captain came down and very calmly said, "Just to make your day a bit better the spotter plane has just a whale shark." We all clapped and the boat took off in the direction we had came from. We were all so relieved because it was 2:45pm...so we were cutting it close. It took us over 30 minutes to make it to where the whale shark was. Then we all lined up on the end of the boat in our two separate groups and were given instructions on what we were going to do when we got in the water. All of us Easyrider were in the second group so we got to see how it worked the first time. Suddenly it was our turn and we all slid into the water. We were told to make sure we looked level with the water and not down into the depths otherwise we might miss the whale shark all together.
And then there it was, this massive 7 meter fish swimming right below us, just cruising along completely ignoring us. We all fanned out to the sides of us and started swimming with it. It was really cruising and so we were all swimming at full speed, it was quite tiring. Then they pulled us up and let the next group go in again. In total we go to go in 3 times. The third time was by far the best because the whale shark was much closer to the surface. That time when I got in the water I went all the way under, like past my snorkel. So when I came back to the surface I put my head above the water to dump out my snorkel. When I put my head under water again I looked forward and there was the whale shark heading right toward me. I screamed into my snorkel and then kicked as hard as I could to get out of its way. That night I had a nightmare about looking up and seeing that whale shark, except in the dream it actually ran into me. Aside from that minor moment of terror though it was great that third time because it was so much closer than the last few times and it was moving a bit slower.
Our Shark
Just to show you how big it was in comparison to a person
After everyone had had three times in the water with the whale shark we got back in the boat and started heading back to shore. Then there was a splash in the water and we looked down to the see that the whale shark had turned back and was swimming around the boat. It was great to see the whale shark from out of the water because it wasn't so distorted and you could really see how gigantic it was. After another hour or so, and some delicious cake, we had made it back to the shore.
Swimming with whale sharks was truly an amazing experience. It was a bit hectic with everyone jumping in and out of the water and swimming as fast as they could. The whale shark was an incredible animal and I would definitely do it again. In fact we all love it so much that we decided to go back the next day with the same company and swim with the Manta Rays. But that update will be for tomorrow.
Until then!
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