Swimming with a Whale Shark

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I have been waiting a long time for this. Swimming with a whale shark in really clear water. It was magical. I was working as a naturalist for one of the Pacific Whale Foundation boats called the Ocean Spirit. It isn't my usual boat but I have been helping out one day a week this month. Today was my last day on Spirit and it turned out to be a memorable one. It started off almost not happening at all.
If under 40 passengers sign up then one of the naturalist doesn't work. We just changed this to give us the option to work if we want to. And of course, I wanted to! So I showed up and enjoyed a relax snorkel cruise to one of my favorite destinations, Molokini Island. Its actually the tip of a submerged volcano which provide crystal clear, offshore, protected water to snorkel in. Or you can scuba the backside which drops 300ft directly into the ocean floor.
After my reef tour we got everyone back on the boat and headed out of Molokini crater. By this time we were the second to last boat there. One little dive boat on the edge of the crater remained and it was that boat who radioed us as we were leaving that they were seeing a whale shark! Wow.
So we made a U-turn and Ashley, a fellow naturalist, and I grabbed our cameras and snorkel gear. We jumped in and swam until the shape of a 20+ft whale shark emerged out of the deep blue. The viz was about 150feet and we first spotted the whale shark hanging out at about 75ft down. I free dove down to get a better look. I was so ecstatic. This is the biggest fish in the world! And so beautiful with all these spots all over its dorsal side. Then the whale shark started to swim up towards the surface. I continued to take photos and it actually swam over me at one point. I took the picture of Ashley and the shark as it was moving towards the surface.




Then Ashley jumped back on the boat and the other naturalist Dav jumped in as well. The bottom picture is him about 15ft in front of the shark at about 50ft down. All in a days work.!