SOUTHERN AFRICA 2023: DAY 37 — MOZAMBIQUE

When a Whale Shark is Coming for You

And you’re snorkeling in the Indian Ocean

"A whale shark swims in a straight line. In the perfect world. Three of us will be on the left of him and three of us on the right. Keeping a minimum of three meters from the animal to give him enough personal space."

In what perfect world would you decide to jump into the ocean to swim with a whale shark? That was my question. But we had signed up for this Ocean safari and here was the briefing about it.

So, here we are. It's 7.30 in the morning as we're checking our scuba diving gear. We get a quick briefing that includes carrying the speedboat into the ocean and how to jump in. Then we're off.

Getting through the beach break was rough but the drive to the diving site was only about 15 minutes. Having done two dives already in Vilankulos, we now knew about all the routines for diving from a speedboat.

Just minutes later, we found ourselves at the bottom of the Indian Ocean surrounded by plenty of colorful fish.

As you might have heard before, I’m not a confident diver and so my husband is the one with the camera in hand while underwater. He’s also diving into cracks, looking behind every rock, and playing with shrimps while I’m focusing on breathing as relaxed as possible.

We were rather excited seeing three guitarfish on this dive. They are flat, always well-camouflaged and fast when on the move.

But there were so many fish worth mentioning, I can't name them all. My eyes were everywhere. Left right and center and yet, I didn't see everything.

One time, our dive master swam to me and tipped me on my shoulder pointing up. With my eyes below, I didn’t see the huge school of fish that was around my head. Literally centimeters away from me. I wanted to jump for joy but remembered to stay calm and just keep breathing.

As we were getting toward the end of our dive we reached a very pretty reef with countless yellow and orange shining fish. Clownfish were playing catch-me-if-you-can with David and I needed to signal I was low on air.

As always being the first in my group of needing to surface, I was proud of myself as we reached a total diving time of 69 minutes. A personal record and certainly a sign I’m getting more relaxed down below.

We drove back to shore just to drop off the diving gear and get our briefing for the ocean safari. While we could expect to see dolphins, whale sharks and manta rays, no sightings were guaranteed.

Back on the boat with our snorkeling gear and equipped with the safety briefing on how to dive with whale sharks, everybody had their eyes on the water looking for any signs of animals on the surface.

It took a while before the skipper mentioned the exciting sighting. Not one but two whale sharks. Having our fins and snorkel on already, it didn't take long until we were in the water.

The first whale shark was swimming away from us and all I saw were air bubbles created by David paddling as I was trying to follow, the sea creature soon decided to dive down below into unknown depths.

But no reason to be disappointed. I mentioned there were two whale sharks and we just had to turn around to see the second one. This one seemed more relaxed and too occupied with feeding to be bothered by a handful of swimmers around him.

Can you believe it? There is a whale shark. Right next to us. In the water. We’re just far enough away from the animal not to be able to touch him.

Having my own camera in hand, I was trying to lie still on the water’s surface when all of a sudden I just saw the whale shark opening his mouth and turning toward me.

I tried not to panic but certainly turned around quickly trying to paddle away from the animal.

Remembering the words of our guide I was wondering in what perfect world she was living in as this whale shark was moving everything else but in a straight line. This boy was turning in circles making it sheer impossible for us to always stay far enough away from the animal.

But what was so fascinating to me was how unimpressed this sea creature was by our presence.

While whale sharks have the word "shark" in their name, they are the largest of all fish species. Being a slow-moving and filter-feeding carpet fish, he can't bite nor chew.

So, yes. It is certainly safe for both parties to be close to this animal but still impressive.

And while the whale shark kept on opening his mouth in an attempt to feed on as much plankton as possible, we kept on swimming with this fascinating creature.

Later, our guide was explaining the reason why the animal was turning in circles. As we created plenty of bubbles on the surface with our flippers, the whale shark sees those bubbles as potential food, follows us and therefore turns in a circle trying to get all the nutrients.

Later on, the guide who’s also researching these unknown species is telling us interesting facts about the species and what is known about them. Interestingly, very little is known as the species hasn’t been researched a lot.

Here on the coast of Mozambique, they have only ever spotted male, juvenile whale sharks like the two we saw so far. They were about 3 to 4 meters in length while the largest whale shark ever measured reached almost 19 meters in length.

All over the world, researchers have only ever seen one pregnant female which gives no data about their breeding and birth-giving process. While some animals do get tracked with satellite trackers, these tags break off once those animals dive too deep as they’ve been recorded to go below two kilometers and more into the depths of the oceans.

We were for almost half an hour in the water with this whale shark when another boat arrived with tourists excited to see the species from inside the water and we decided to climb back on the boat to give them also some time near the animal.

Cruising back toward shore, we did spot two more whale sharks on the surface which made it to a total of four that day. Extremely lucky we were, our guide said.

Swimming with this whale shark will certainly be a memory I won't forget so soon.

After spending most of our morning underwater, we were now more than hungry and exhausted. We decided on treating ourselves and instead of cooking a meal, go out for lunch.

As we were strolling through the streets of this sleepy coastal village, we stumbled upon a Japanese restaurant where I couldn't resist but order a plate of sushi.

Sitting on the deck of the restaurant, a cool breeze was blowing while we were enjoying the view of the Indian Ocean from above talking about the day's highlights.

This is part four of our roadtrip. Watch the full video of our tour through Mozambique down below:

We’re currently touring southern Africa and if you’d like to follow, go through this list of stories from our road trip:

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