Leigh Adam's experience diving with 'Slowmungus' the Whale Shark

 

We were on the way to our second dive site of the morning while holidaying in The Maldives this July 2007. On the first dive we had seen many sharks and the largest black spotted ray I have ever seen so it couldn’t get better than that we thought. My wife was sat looking out to see among the other twenty divers on board our Maldivian Dhoni boat. We all turned round and followed her arm out to see as she shouted ‘WHALE’! Surely not, it must have been a dolphin we all assumed. Then as we all stared in the pointed direction up surfaced a beautiful Hump Back whale. Four times it surfaces over a period of a few minutes before in the final surface its fluke and tail rose out of the water giving us a perfect view before it dived below and straight down. It was the most fantastic thing I had ever seen with my own eyes. Surely things could not get any better. As the boat continued to our dive site we were all chatting about the whale and what a blessed day we had already had.

 

Suddenly the dive guides started shouting to the boat handlers to slow and turn. We all assumed the whale had returned though we thought that highly suspect as surely we had scared him off. Then the dive guides all pointed at once to the whale shark off our port side. Twenty divers all grabbed snorkels, masks and cameras and jumped in. We swam for ten yards before out of the blue he came straight at us albeit about four meters under the surface. He passed directly below us as we all gawped and tried to keep up. He then dropped into the blue presumable never to be seen again. Twenty divers all bobbed on the surface with smiles as big as the whale sharks, all prepared to give up diving as it was never going to get any better. As we all clambered aboard we were told to kit up as our second dive was near by. The excitement was electric though no one was expecting the second dive to be as fantastic as the past hours experiences. As a group we had begun to descent headed by three dive guides. We all expected to just have a relaxing second dive so were descending gently. At around five meters we all heared the sound of a tank banger and turned a sour Whale Shark came back straight towards the group. No at the same level as him we were amazed as he came straight for us and through the group. I personally passed within centimetres of his left pectoral fin. Obviously he had not read the ‘code of conduct’ so was not aware of the advised minimum three meter gap. He glided gracefully through the group before again dropping into the blue, his tail slicing close to me taking up my full field of vision.

 

After he left we were all sharing signs of glee and amazement as we hovered for a few minutes absorbing the experience. The dive guides then led us back to the wall we were diving where a gorgeous Hawks Billed Turtle was feeding and more than happy to pose to the cameras. Somehow he didn’t seem quire as gorgeous as he may have on any other day. The dive lasted another thirty minutes as we all semi reluctantly desired to get back to the surface to discuss our best dive of most of our dive careers. An experience I will never forget.
 

 

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