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2478
Patterson Road Suite #9 |
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Trip Photos |
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Trip to Palau |
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Fiji Trip Photos |
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Belize Trip |
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June 9, 2009 - 2 days after the full moon. (More
Photos)
So, we've already done one dive. We saw one, but he was
far away and a couple fairly excitable divers charged toward him and
scared him away before we saw more than just a shadow. We are now on
our second dive. Suddenly Prince, our dive master, (not the singer that
wears a doo rag) starts banging on his tank and frantically purging his
octopus, waving it in the water. This forms bubbles that supposedly
look like the spawn of the snapper, which attracts the whale sharks.
He's pointing wildly ahead of us. I've learned over 20 years of diving
that if you're calm and still and wait for the creatures to come to you,
you'll get a much better chance of seeing them. So...... I looked in
the direction Prince was pointing..... nothing....I kept watching...
still nothing but deep blue water.. Then it slowly materialized out of
the blue. I could see it's mouth; its eyes. I have no concept of the
size. It was BIG! Really, really big. Coming right to me. I put my
hands behind my back. I calm myself and hover and watch. He's coming
right at me. I hang there and watch.. HE'S COMING RIGHT AT ME! I look
around for Jay, hoping he's close with his camera. He had problems
clearing his ears earlier and I'm so afraid he's far above and might
miss this. But I turn around and he's there. I turn back and the whale
shark is RIGHT THERE. Right beside us passing by. Slowly- gliding -
this Behemoth of the deep can't be more than 5 - 10 feet away. Oh...
my....God! We spend about 15 - 20 minutes watching him gliding around
us. Close. Amazingly close. Watching him pass by gives
me a surrealistic feeling; nothing but deep blue water, a few divers,
and this majestic creature of the deep. Back on the boat, Prince told us there were actually 3 of them. I thought I was seeing the same one several times, but he said there were 3 and guessed them to be about 30 feet long.... But wait..... there's more. After the dive, we had some lunch, and are just hanging around on the boat and suddenly the captain spotted Manatees. I've never seen a manatee either, so we all grabbed our masks and snorkels, jumped in the water and headed in the direction the captain was pointing. So, I'm swimming along on the surface and suddenly, there they are.... yep.... manatees. Three of them. They were kind of crawling along the sand, looking like big gray turds. Not really pretty creatures at all. But WOW!.... Manatees. We snorkeled with them for a while very happy to have seen whale sharks and manatees. But wait.... there's more. We're heading back to the beach when all of a sudden the captain spots dolphins. There were about 7 - 10 of the playing happily on the surface. Some people from another boat were trying to snorkel with them but kind of scared them away. We just stayed on the boat and watched for a while. Then headed back to the beach for our beer to celebrate the trifecta..... whale sharks, manatees, and dolphins. A very good day. |
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DOMINICA, |
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Curacao |
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Grand Cayman Trip |
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Indonesia Vacation |
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that
come to the Gladden Spit during the full moon in April, May and June to
feast on the spawn of the Cubera Snapper. It amazes me that a creature
as huge as a whale shark (they get up to 60 feet long) can nourish
itself on the eggs of a snapper. It's gotta take a whole lot of caviar
to feed those guys.
