Day 24
Yardie - Exmouth - Cape Range National Park.
"hop in my Chrysler it's as big as a whale (shark) and it's about to set sail..."
Whalesharks.....
What a day (for me). I got dropped at Tantabiddi Boat Ramp at 8am to meet the crew from 3 Islands Whaleshark dives. We grabbed a tender out to our boat Nedo K and took off for a day full of adventure!
We firstly snorkelled the inner reef in the sanctuary - its much better off shore. The coral is untouched, the fish more abundant - water is still bath like!
That was just to get ourselves in the water and accustomed to jumping off the back of the boat. It was also to wait for the spotter planes to take off from Learmouth at 10am to go find our sharks.
It only took about 15 mins airborne for the first call to come thru. Sharks spotted near the surface - but we had a motor - about 20 mins out of the reef into open water and down South- so we had morning tea and the mandatory Whaleshark conduct briefing on our way .
The next 4 hours were both hectic and awesome!
We had 23 on our boat including crew and were split into 2 groups. Each group had a spotter from the crew and they were always in the water first to make and maintain contact with the whaleshark and to provide the boat with directional information to get us in the water at the right spot.
In the end we saw 4 different sharks and jumped in the water to swim with them 8 times. We were in and out of the water constantly at that time . You can't have anymore than 10 swimming with a shark at any time.
All the whalesharks were males and between 4 and 5 Metres long. Basically a tonne a metre is the rule!
Lunch was late (2pm) because of all the shark action and we then left the area to go back inside the reef and another snorkel over the coral to finish our day.
Everyone else drove around the peninsular and into Exmouth- to the Lighthouse, the Turtle sanctuary and to see the SS Mildura wreck off the point.
Tomorrow we are walking some Gorges in the NP and doing lots more snorkeling.