Ningaloo Blue Whale Shark Tour

Apr. 24

The day we have been waiting for has finally arrived.  This is the number one thing that I wanted to do in WA this year, swimming with the whale sharks. And what an experience it was!  We started off with a short snorkel on the reef before heading out to deeper waters to find the whale sharks. Here is a sample of what we saw.  We did buy the DVD of our trip, so you can come and watch it with us when we get back to Canada.

On the docks anxiously awaiting a ride out to our boat.

Our whale shark charter boat.

Wayne snorkelling above a beautiful piece of coral.

Amazing fish and coral at this snorkelling spot.
It was deeper here so the colours aren't as vibrant in the photos.

Whale shark from above water.

First whale shark sighting.

Whale shark swimming by about 3m away.

Notice how long the whale shark is compared to the person swimming alongside.  Most of the whale sharks that we saw were young males between 3m and 6m long, but they can get up to 12m in length.

Gentle giants.
Whale sharks are generally solitary creatures, but we did see some relatively close together.

Diving deep so we could get an overhead view.

Noah snorkelling with a whale shark.

Ellise snorkelling with a whale shark.
She liked seeing them, but didn't want to get too close.

Suzie having some fun swimming with a whale shark.

Wayne up close and personal with a whale shark.

Whale shark with its mouth open having a feed.

Bye bye whale sharks!

After snorkelling with the whale sharks all morning, we had a gourmet lunch on the boat and headed inside the reef for another snorkel.  The first spot we were going to stop at had a large tiger shark circling around it, so we moved on to another area.  Little did we know that after snorkelling for about an hour at the second spot, we passed another tiger shark only about 100m from where we were snorkelling.  Yikes!!  We also saw dolphins and turtles swimming by as well.  All in all, an awesome day!! We loved hearing the Aussies say awesome, because it sounded more like oarsome !!

An ominous tiger shark lurking close by the boat.  This guy was about 10 ft. long.

Suzie and Ellise doing their best Titanic imitation.
Notice the 2 Champagne flutes in Suzie's hands though.

View from the front of the boat.
It doesn't get much better than this.

Two thumbs up on a great day!!