Yardie Homestead located on the western side of the North West Cape is only a 10min drive from the Tantabiddi boat ramp where our whale shark tour departed from. Pack up was smooth and we arrived with plenty of time to spare.
This 25 minute snorkel was a drift snorkel. We were dropped off and drifted through the reef on the current. Again the fish and marine life was impressive. No turtles yet but so many other colourful fish. The most interesting marine animal was the porcupine sting ray nestled on the sea bed.
Tantabiddi was already busy - numerous boats had already been launched as bus loads of tourists were arriving every few minutes. We searched for our tour group Ningaloo Whaleshark eventually spotting the bus being one of the last to arrive.
As the water is so shallow, we were ferried in a small runabout in two groups out to the moored bigger boat - Seazone. Once onboard the process was similar to the manta ray tour - people were kitted out with gear - this included a stinger suit too. Information and safety on the day events was presented, then we motored away to our first snorkel spot.
This 25 minute snorkel was a drift snorkel. We were dropped off and drifted through the reef on the current. Again the fish and marine life was impressive. No turtles yet but so many other colourful fish. The most interesting marine animal was the porcupine sting ray nestled on the sea bed.
Once back onboard, the drone of the spotter plane could be heard above. It wasn't too long before the skipper Josh had located our first whaleshark! Again we were allocated in team 1, so organised ourselves then positioned ourselves on the marlin board ready for the signal.
Go, go, go and we were off! Watching for instruction from our swimmer Jeff and keeping one eye on the direction spotter and photographer Shain, we put our faces in only to see a massive tail as the whaleshark had turned at the last minute!! First attempt failed!!
We climbed back on the marlin board for our second drop. It was once again chaos trying to sort ourselves out into a line. Jeff was responsible for positioning us based on Shain's signals. He was yelling for us to move back and when we put our faces in the water we could see why. The whaleshark was only meters away swimming straight towards us!! I pulled Katy out of the way as she was close to being swallowed!! The whaleshark seems unperturbed and gently glides by very close to us! We recover quickly enough to remember to keep swimming while in complete amazement of this wonderful creature.
And so the day continues like that. We end up swimming with 7 different whale sharks. Some are slow, others are fast, some dive down others change direction. We learn most of these ones are juvenile males. A database of individuals has been created. Unlike the dolphins at Monkey Mia, they don't have names but are assigned a number. This identification process is done by taking a photo of an area next to the left pectoral fin and looking at the pattern of white dots.
By the end of the last swim we are all physically shattered. Even when the whaleshark swims slowly, for us to keep up it was like doing an interval session of kick in the pool. For me I was also assisting in helping Katy to keep up too!
Some interesting facts -
- have a lifespan of around 80 years
- can grow up to 18 metres (the biggest we swam with was about 5 - 7metres
- around 200 - 400 individual whalesharks aggregate on the Ningaloo coast each year and most are juvenile males
- they come to Ningaloo for the coral spawning which occurs in March
- the spawning attracts blooms of plankton and krill - their favourite food!
We motor back to the inner reef, drop anchor and enjoy lunch. A short time later we enter the after for the last drift snorkel. Thank goodness we weren't required to do too much work on this one.
Bubbles and fruit were served as we returned back to the Tantabiddi jetty. A nice way to finish an experience we will never forget.
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