Earlier in the blog I shared a picture of the moon that I took during my trip to Mexico in summer 2013. I spent four weeks in the Sian Ka'an biosphere reserve, located just south of Tulum, monitoring coral as part of a marine conservation project. The Sian Ka'an reserve includes a section of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef.
I'm just HOOKED on diving...
All going well, we dived 8 or 9 times during the week, with weekends free to travel to local sites and cities. I could probably dedicate a whole blog to stories and photos from this trip - from diving with sting rays, barracudas, turtles and more, to guzzling tacos, to partying in Playa del Carmen (an excellent place to celebrate your 21st birthday, I'll have you know) - but for now, I'm just going to concentrate on one stand-out experience that remains to this day unlike anything else I've done.
Shark-diving was never something that had featured prominently on my extensive and ever-growing bucket-list. It wasn't that I found the idea daunting, or that I'd decided I wouldn't do it under any circumstances - the idea of being lowered into the sea in a confined space, unable to swim around, just didn't particularly appeal to me. So when fellow volunteers at Pez Maya (our camp in the Sian Ka'an) started recommending a trip to Cancun to dive with whale sharks, I was hesitant at first. However, they recounted a very different tale to what I had imagined. No cages, no barriers, but instead, the opportunity to actually dive in and swim freely alongside these amazing, colossal fish - I was sold. Jaws, here I come.
The waters off Cancun play host to migrating whale sharks from mid-May to mid-September. Myself and another volunteer, Ali, went swimming with the sharks on our last weekend in Mexico. We booked with a company in Playa, and on the morning of the trip, travelled from there to the port in Cancun, where many tour companies convened to have breakfast, distribute life-jackets and rent out wetsuits. There were underwater disposable cameras for sale or Go Pros for rent, which usually I would dismiss as money-making gimmicks - however, this is one occasion when it's worth spending the money. You're deFINitely going to want pictures of this. Luckily, we were already equipped with a Go Pro, on loan from a fabulous Pez Maya buddy :)
It was a one and a half hour bumpy boat ride from the shore to where we would find the sharks, during which our anticipation and excitement continued to grow. The same could not be said for the grumpy German girl sitting across from us, whose face suggested that each bump drove the figurative stick further up her - ;)
Shark-diving was never something that had featured prominently on my extensive and ever-growing bucket-list. It wasn't that I found the idea daunting, or that I'd decided I wouldn't do it under any circumstances - the idea of being lowered into the sea in a confined space, unable to swim around, just didn't particularly appeal to me. So when fellow volunteers at Pez Maya (our camp in the Sian Ka'an) started recommending a trip to Cancun to dive with whale sharks, I was hesitant at first. However, they recounted a very different tale to what I had imagined. No cages, no barriers, but instead, the opportunity to actually dive in and swim freely alongside these amazing, colossal fish - I was sold. Jaws, here I come.
The waters off Cancun play host to migrating whale sharks from mid-May to mid-September. Myself and another volunteer, Ali, went swimming with the sharks on our last weekend in Mexico. We booked with a company in Playa, and on the morning of the trip, travelled from there to the port in Cancun, where many tour companies convened to have breakfast, distribute life-jackets and rent out wetsuits. There were underwater disposable cameras for sale or Go Pros for rent, which usually I would dismiss as money-making gimmicks - however, this is one occasion when it's worth spending the money. You're deFINitely going to want pictures of this. Luckily, we were already equipped with a Go Pro, on loan from a fabulous Pez Maya buddy :)
It was a one and a half hour bumpy boat ride from the shore to where we would find the sharks, during which our anticipation and excitement continued to grow. The same could not be said for the grumpy German girl sitting across from us, whose face suggested that each bump drove the figurative stick further up her - ;)
We were rEELly excited..
So it was to her relief and our delight that we arrived at the whale sharks' feeding area and joined the throng of boats already there. The 8 of us on our boat were divided up into 4 pairs, each pair having three opportunities to swim with the sharks. Our Mexican instructor fired off some rapid instructions - "Go when I say go swim ahead of de shark don't touch de shark don't get hit by de tail ees very painful" - wait, sorry; what was that last one?! "Ok, go go GO!"
I don't think I will ever forget that first moment when I stuck my head under the water and saw this 25-foot creature advancing towards me, its gargantuan mouth wide open and ready to swallow me up. The National Geographic profile on whale sharks comments on how "the beast.. passively filters everything in its path" - I still believe that if I hadn't gotten out of the way, that shark would have just gone on swimming and obliviously sucked me into its depths.
I'd ROD-ther not be eaten, thanks.
It was absolutely exhilarating. Our instructor would tell us where and when to look, and we would stick our heads under and fin furiously in an attempt to stay alongside these gentle giants. More than once I had to scramble to avoid being hit by a massive tail sailing serenely in my direction..
I'm not CODding you, I was struggling to keep up..
Ali and I couldn't resist swimming as close as possible to them, snapping away with the Go Pro at all times of course - here you can see the shark feeding on some small fish, and below you can see two remoras hitching a ride on his back!
If you need an idea of SCALE, there's me up in the corner -
these guys are roughly the size of a bus!
We ended up getting to swim with them four times - grumpy German girl didn't want to take her last go, surprise surprise - and still it wasn't enough. It was surreal to be so close to such a huge creature, and for it to be completely unphased by our presence. If you ever need to be reminded of your insignificance in the world, I can assure you a whale shark is the creature to do it ;)
The boat ride back to the shore - and the rest of the day, for that matter - was spent reliving every second we'd spent in the water - they were "actually so big like" ;) It truely was an unforgettable affair and something I would recommend to anyone (bar maybe those with a fear of fish. I don't think any of you ichthyophobics out there would be too keen on it). The SOLE problem I had with it, much like a safari in Africa, was the potential disturbance casued to wild creatures by the sheer volume of tourists and the noise of the vehicles. It's hard to believe that this doesn't bother the sharks in some way - how great of a disturbance this is, I'm not sure. If you do ever find yourself in Cancun though, and you decide to swim with the whale sharks, make sure to do 3 things;
1. Rent a Go Pro.
2. Get on the boat with the crabby European lady, in the hope that you can steal one of her turns later. And
3. Remember the phrase "passively filters". Ain't nobody want to end up like Jonah.
(PS - I hope y'all noticed my none-too-subtle fish puns dotted throughout this post ;P )
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