Swimming with Critters

Meet and Greet

Pleased to meet you

This is the Family

Just a light snack

Whale Sharks:

Whale sharks are the biggest fish in the ocean. We know they’re big but even so they manage to disappear for months at a time. However they always show up to feed on the plankton and coral spawn at the Ningaloo Reef every autumn. We’ve come to swim with them.

Because they’re so big, the whale sharks hang out on the outside of the reef in the deep water. Our boat carefully follows the channel out into the open ocean. The two meter swell is accompanied by wind and chop. It’s not very comfy on the boat and we watch a mother and daughter team puke off the back starboard corner, and we thank the heavens for the invention of Gravol.

This isn’t a unique idea of ours. Whale sharking is huge business in Exmouth. Four tour companies line up to take the willingly offered $350 from each customer. If they’re there, you’ll see a whale shark because a spotter plane is sent to find them. The Australian Government has strict guidelines on the interactions: how many swimmers, how close they and boats can get, and for how much time.

Well, the word’s out – there’s a whale shark by lighthouse bay. Our boat turns and heads up the coast. It’s time to prepare to go swimming!

We are divided into two groups of ten. Jim, I, and eight others are suited up in wetsuits, fins (flipper is the name of a dolphin), snorkel and mask. We all gather as close to the back of the boat as possible ready jump in.

Andrew, our guide, goes in first to locate our quarry. He swims, face down and looking, and indicates he sees the whale shark by raising his arm vertically out of the water. He lifts his head and points his other arm in the direction of its travel.

“Go, go, go GO!” the boat’s coordinator launches us into the sea. Arms, fins and snorkels are everywhere as the ten of us splash around bumping into each other as we try to find ourselves space and locate the whale shark. Everyone’s faces are down in the water. And then we see it.

Ours is a small whale shark by comparison – of a possible eighteen meters he’s only about four meters long. He (adolescent males tend to hangout out at Ningaloo) is swimming straight to us barely under the surface. His mouth is over a meter wide and open just a bit. He has a surreal blue color dotted and striped with pale markings. His flank comes into view and I watch his enormous gills ripple as he swims. Several sucker fish are suckered under his fins. His massive tail gently sways back and forth …

Wait a minute – TAIL – that means he’s passed me by!

Eyes forward and now watching the back end of the whale shark, I swim hard to try and catch up. Rules state no more than four meters from the tail, or three meters from the side. No worries there. I catch up to the rest of the group and now all I see are bubbles from everyone’s efforts.

Some whale sharks are quiet and slow, occasionally almost sleeping. We aren’t meeting that kind of animal. Our whale shark is out for a swim and we’re in for a workout if we want to keep up.

Soon after, Andrew signals our first interaction is over. B Group is in the water, while we have a rest on the boat and get ready to go in again.

Back on the boat there’s much excited chatter. It seems all of us got a look – some better than others. I tell Jim about my bubble woes.

“Get up front,” he replies. “Remember, only the lead dog gets a different view.”

Five times we are told “Go, go, go, GO!” as we are herded into the water an appropriate distance in front of the whale shark. The pandemonium of the entry, our placements, the waves and swell somehow all seem to liquefy into a world of turquoise blue as our faces submerge, and this huge creature gently moves though his water world, and passes us by.

The brochure’s hype tells you to swim with the whale sharks will change your life - perhaps for some. For me it’s definitely an experience I’ll always hold in awe.

Swimming with a manta ray is the same – only different. We are now at Coral Bay. Mantas can grow up to four meters across their wings – but even so are smaller creatures. They also feed on plankton, but inside the reef - so there’s no need for open ocean swell. They also spook, so we’re careful not to startle them.

Again we’re sitting on the back of a dive boat – all kitted out. Again the spotter plane has told us where to go. Again our guide is in the water, one arm up, one arm pointing.

On the signal we slip quietly into the water and our faces turn down. Five meters below, the unmistakable kite shape of the manta ray is moving though the powder blue water. The murkiness is what the ray is eating. It slowly swims, his great wings lightly flowing up and down. This time we aren’t in a race. I float on the surface and marvel.

When it comes to underwater creatures in Australia, none are as famous as the dolphins of Monkey Mia. They have developed into their own sideshow. It started over 50 years ago when a local lady started feeding them. Now, over 100,000 people a year come to this one-stunt town for the spectacle of wild dolphins visiting humans each morning. Jaded and cynical, we arrive too.

Here also, the government has set rules. No one is to touch the dolphins. A specific stretch of beach has been designated the ‘dolphin interaction zone’. No boating, no fishing, no people to enter the water beyond knee deep.

We walk the beach at sunset and watch several dolphins cavorting around 100 meters off shore. We wonder what the morning will hold.

It is 6:40AM and the sun is only peeping above the horizon. Jim has been up for almost an hour as I reach the water and start to walk towards the dolphin zone. And then I see it. Less than a meter off shore, there’s an unmistakable ripple through the water. My pace quickens.

There are only three of us and we stand calf deep. A dolphin (her name is Puck) quietly swims in front of us and then stops. I could reach and touch her but I don’t. The water is so shallow that her blowhole is exposed. It opens and closes and I listen to her breathe. She wiggles her tail, does a tight loop and comes back into shore to face us at 90 degrees. I squat down.

“Good morning beautiful,” I say quietly to her. She lifts her head from the water and turns it so her eye is looking directly into mine. She is less than a meter away, just lying in the shallow water. She is looking at me.

I am transfixed.

In the soft glow of dawn, Puck glides up and down the beach greeting the early risers. By sun-up she is joined by Nicky, and the process continues. Now we hear the dolphins whistle and click and well as the intimate sound of their breathing.

A Parks Service Representative arrives on the beach. The growing crowd is shepherded in a straight line along the water. We listen to the dolphin story while we wonder at the sight of them lazing in the shallows before us.

Female dolphins are very territorial while males wander in and out of the social circles. This beach is in the territory of only three matriarch’s families: Puck, Nicky and Surprise. There are over 900 other dolphins in Shark Bay that don’t take part in this strange ritual.

Assorted members of these three dolphin clans hang with us. They jump, they gambol, and they cruise up and down the beach. At one point, I count fifteen in the water in front of us.

So, each morning, when the Park’s coordinator thinks the visit is long enough, the buckets of fish come out. The feeding itself takes only a few minutes. Of the group, only five specific females are fed and only 20% of their needs. The remainder they must catch themselves.

From the audience, people are chosen randomly. Each gets to offer one fish until all the fish are gone.

“You in the red jumper,” a guide points to me.

I follow the routine. I am handed a fish about five inches long. I hold it by the tail and lower it into the water in front of Nicki. She lifts her nose, opens her mouth and takes the fish.

I walk back to my place in the line. Jim is smiling. So am I - and I don’t stop smiling for a long, long time.