I Sailed Twenty Thousand Miles to Swim With Whale Sharks
A Journey Around The World Led me to St Helena
The first time I thought about swimming with whale sharks was in Roatan, Honduras, in 2016. I had been there for a week but had just left my job as a computer consultant and had an extra week to blow in Honduras. I booked a boat to Utila, an island about 30 miles from Roatan, where I heard there was at least one whale shark. I could hardly wait to get there! There was a whale shark diving organization going there the same day so I was in good company.
I booked a week of diving (2 boat dives per day) at one of the local dive schools and found a place to stay nearby. Utila is a cool little island with lots of dive shops and some very interesting things to see. I rented an enduro motorcycle all week and explored the island from one end to the other.
It was hot in Utila and after two attempts I found the right accommodations with an adequate fan. Every morning I showed up at the dive shop and they promised if we saw whale sharks, they would immediately stop and let us swim with them. You aren’t allowed to swim with whale sharks using scuba gear; only fins, snorkel and mask. I went every day for three days and then on Thursday morning, I woke up with some serious sinus congestion and had to cancel my dives for that day. You can’t really clear your ears and dive effectively with sinus issues.
Guess which day they saw the whale shark? Thursday afternoon I checked in with the dive shop and they saw a shark that morning and everybody got to swim with it. I was so discouraged, not only because I was sick in a place where I had come to dive, but because I had missed the whale shark! I didn’t recover enough to dive again until I was leaving the island and returning to the US.
My Search for Whale Sharks Begins
I went home and within a month I decided to take a break from my computer consulting business and instead pursue a dream of mine to sail around the world. A month later I was heading to Spain to get my YachtMaster Certificate and then start sailing around the world, by Global HitchHiking or crewing. I sailed with one boat from Virginia to Aruba, then took a plane to Bonaire, where I earned my DiveMaster Certificate. Two months later I flew to Panama and joined a boat sailing to Tahiti. From Tahiti, on yet another boat I sailed through Bora Bora, Niue, and Tonga. In Tonga, I joined my last boat for the year and we sailed to Malaysia.
On the boat to Malaysia, my skipper was a diver and he knew a great place to see whale sharks in Indonesia. I was out of my mind with excitement! We sailed outside of our planned itinerary to go down to the whale shark location, a large bay with 20–30 fishing platforms. You can see it on this whale shark tracking map, which I found at Conservation International. I’ve circled the area where we went to see the whale sharks, and you can see by this map that they have been sighted a lot there.
The whale sharks love to hang out underneath fishing platforms because the nets hang down into the water and often smaller fish and sea life swarm underneath them. Whale sharks eat plankton, krill, and fish eggs, among other things, and these fishing platforms tend to attract these items in abundance.
Unfortunately, we struck out. We had sailed into the far end of the inlet the night before and woke up early the next morning, motoring from fishing platform to fishing platform, asking if they had seen any whale sharks that day. None of them had. After a few hours of trying, we finally gave up and went back to our normal itinerary, heading to Kuala Lumpur. That was August of 2017.
Two More Oceans, Still No Sharks
To finish out 2017, I stayed in Kuala Lumpur and traveled around South East Asia, but didn’t do any diving, other than some free-diving in the Gili Islands. In May of 2018, I boarded a 40-foot boat in Darwin, Australia, and sailed it with the owner across the Indian Ocean, arriving in Capetown, South Africa in December 2018. We made many stops along the way, saw plenty of whales and dolphins, but didn’t see any whale sharks.
In February of 2019, we left Namibia, sailed for two weeks, and arrived in Jamestown, St Helena. Jamestown is a quaint island, a British protectorate, and is famous for being where Napoleon was sentenced to spend the rest of his life after he was captured by the British. A truly lovely place to visit, and one of many places I traveled to that I had never heard of before sailing there. It’s also a great place to break up the Southern Atlantic month-long crossing.
While we were there, we were told about several shivers of whale sharks that swam in the waters of the island, sometimes up to 25 in number. There was actually a whale shark symposium going on while we were there, so we got quite a lot of information about them.
We scheduled a tour for the following day, but that morning it was canceled because the swells were too big. Murphy’s Law was really playing with my head at this point. 20,000 miles of sailing, hoping to swim with whale sharks, and once again, I’m being thwarted! Please don’t let this be yet another near miss.
We rescheduled for the next morning. We checked in with the tour group and they said that they couldn’t do it that morning for some reason but rescheduled again for 2 pm that same day. Of course, in my mind, I kept thinking it was going to be canceled or rescheduled again, as is my luck with whale sharks.
Yes! Finally, Whale Sharks!
At 2 pm we boarded the powerboat that took us to the other side of the island. All along the way, we looked for dorsal fins and green/blue splotches in the water. We passed an area where they were known to congregate without seeing a single one. We continued on. I enjoyed the boat ride as it was quite swelly and bumpy and felt like I was riding a bronco as I held on for dear life. I’ve always enjoyed those kinds of boat rides, more like a rollercoaster than a boat ride. Maybe that’s part of the reason I enjoy sailing so much.
Finally, despite the constant concern in the back of my mind that we were not going to find any, we were told by the boat captain that indeed, there were whale sharks ahead and he asked us to put on our snorkel and fins and standby. I scrambled to get mine on and as soon as he said go, I was in the water with my GoPro in hand. I was so excited! The video below is the footage from that entrance. Forgive the shakiness and movement of the camera, I am not a professional videographer.
When I got in the water I didn’t see any sharks, but the water was beautiful and I could see large rock formations 20 meters below. I stuck my head out of the water and the captain pointed in a direction and I started swimming that way. As I swam, I could slowly start to make out something in the distance and it started to take shape. Finally, a magnificent creature started to come into view and it was heading in my direction. Then out of nowhere, another appeared to the right. In my first whale shark experience, I get 2 whale sharks in the same video clip. They came together so suddenly that Brian, my sailboat skipper, got stuck between the two of them as they passed, which you can see in this video.
I spent the next 30 minutes, recording whale shark after whale shark, and even had up to 3 whale sharks at one time. I was in whale shark heaven and I didn’t want to get out of the water. A couple we met in Cocos Keeling in 2018 was also with us and they said they had been circumnavigating for 17 years and this was also their first time seeing whale sharks. They were quite excited as well.
This is one of the most treasured experiences of my 3-year journey around the globe. I still get emotional thinking about it. Their majesty and grace as they slowly swim through the water, almost oblivious to us swimming around them, still blows my mind.
According to the tour captain, they seem to enjoy it when people are swimming with them. We did have strict instructions to not touch them and avoid any contact. There was more than one time I had to swim backwards to avoid getting run over by one of them as it swam towards me. I can’t wait to do it again someday. Hopefully, it won’t take me 20,000 miles of sailing for my next adventure with them.
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