donderdag 8 juli 2010

Exmouth: Whalesharks and humpbackwhales




This is what we wanted to do the most, snorkeling with the whale sharks! The boat we’re on is manned with a real pirate, Captain Ken, he has the parrot to prove it.
We head past the Ningaloo Reef while spotter planes look for the whalesharks and then the boat goes there very quickly. Luckily Captain Ken had one of the fastest boats of Exmouth. You get in the water with a maximum of 10 people and a guide, when you swim with the whaleshark the group splits up and swims at either side of the fish. The whalesharks here are nicknamed the party boys, they are attracted by the coral spawning and come for an easy meal. It’s usually the young males, so they are not yet full length. The biggest ones we swim with are about 9 metres long. All in all we have 4 swims with whalesharks and 1 swim with mantarays.
The first 2 swims the whalesharks are swimming quite fast and it is difficult to keep up with it. The 3rd swim we are extremely lucky, as we are alongside a very relaxed swimming whaleshark and more whalesharks join in! At one point, there are 4 of them surrounding us!! This is is so amazing, our guide is almost ecstatic seeing all of them together. It’s almost like you have to be careful not to bump into one as they gently swim around us. This is better than we could have imagined!
From the boat we can also see humbackwhales as they migrate north with their little ones. This is such an impressive sight, the whales are enormous and one of the babies is learning how to breathe and keeps on jumping out of the water!
The next day we do some hiking along the cliffs and then spend most of the day snorkeling at the Cape Range National Park, which gives easy access to the Ningaloo Reef. The best spot we went to was Turquoise Bay, where you can drift with the current over the reef. Na Young also spots a turtle and a reef shark!


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