Wednesday, October 6, 2010

The sharks are back...


This is one of those pics you just have to love. Does it not fill you with a sense of awe? It should. This type of agrigations are very rare and I was lucky to be in the right place...

We have had a bit of a spurt of whale shark activity. Yesterday we encountered 8 sharks in the south. The two boats with full passengers (that’s two groups on each) had a great time. Some of the sharks just did not want to go away! I saw quite an amazing thing. After years of flying this was the first time I witnessed such a thing.


I spotted a hammerhead shark of about two meters, cruising near the surface. This guy was swimming about, seemingly at random, I guess sniffing the waters to find out what is going on. At the same time a whale shark started to surface not far from the hammerhead shark. I could see the hammerhead shark was on an intercepting course. The whale shark, about 6-7meters in length rose out of the clear depths like a living submarine – its dark outline becoming clearer every second. The hammerhead was closer to the surface before it spotted the whale shark. At this stage I could only imagine what it must feel like to look down and there, slowly rising out of the inky depths is the biggest mother shark you have ever seen. I too would not hang around to ask questions. That hammerhead burst into action with the fastest U-turn, running away like a yelping dog with its tail between its legs.

It was hilarious!

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