Articles

Close encounters with creatures of the deep

Daniel Scott | From: The Australian | July 03, 2010 12:00AM

IT is a warm, cloudless April morning off Australia's North West Cape and I'm standing on the backboard of Magellan, a 20m charter boat, peering into a churning sea.

Beside me, Nadine Theallier, our young French guide, is issuing last-minute instructions when she is halted in mid-sentence by yelps from the boat's bridge. "Go, go, go!"

Theallier shoves her snorkel into her mouth and drops into the swirl. Other snorkellers in our group jump in after her. I hesitate for a moment, wondering just how deep the Indian Ocean is here, about 1km outside Ningaloo Reef, before extending my right leg and striding into the seething swell.

For the next 10 seconds, with whitewater sluicing and slurping around me, and my vision a mass of rushing bubbles, it feels as if I am dropping into a very large drain.

When the confusion clears, I see nothing but clear blue water. Finally, about 5m ahead, there is a glint as Theallier's yellow fins are caught in a shimmer of refracted sunlight. I lift my mask to see her arm extended above the waves, indicating the advancing presence of a creature that first appeared in our oceans at least 65 million years ago.

Submerging my head again, I hang beneath the surface, sucking air and seawater in equal measures through my snorkel. I want everything to slow down but instead, to my right, about 20m ahead, a big grey blur suddenly looms, moving fast. Magellan's skipper, Bill McDonald, has executed the perfect drop-off. Our group of eight snorkellers lies directly in its path.

In seconds, the shadow has become a broad, flat head, underlined by a wide, quizzical-looking mouth. Two cobies -- half-metre fish dwarfed by their bulky minder -- swim just ahead of it, like outriders before a royal cortege.

My first whale shark is a young male, like 80 per cent of those that appear here, between March and July each year, within the 300km-long Ningaloo Marine Park, near Exmouth. It is, for a creature billed as the ocean's biggest fish, quite small, at about 4m. The largest whale shark recorded was more than four times that length and at Ningaloo they can reach 12m and weigh 11 tonnes. But when a whale shark is speeding straight for you, 4m seems big enough. As other snorkellers deftly fin aside, I backpedal furiously to get out of its way.

It might have 300 rows of tiny teeth but swallowing me would cause this filter-feeding shark severe indigestion.

Its favourite food is plankton, including krill and crab larvae, and its proliferation in these waters, following Ningaloo Reef's March coral spawning, helps explain the annual arrival of 300 to 500 whale sharks.

What scares me is the shame of breaking the whale shark code of conduct. Laid down by the WA Department of Environment and Conservation, it stipulates that swimmers should remain 3m from the shark's body and 4m from its tail. Getting closer is potentially hazardous and can stress the shark, causing it to dive deep.

It's only after I am out of the exclusion zone that I take in the shark's elaborate markings. Behind its head, sprinkled with what looks like stardust, are row upon row of larger off-white spots, gleaming in the sun, travelling across and along its body.

As it passes me I note a dark, disproportionately tiny gimlet-eye on its nearside followed by large gills, flapping like curtains in the wind as seawater washes through them. Pectoral fins extend horizontally like half-sized wings, a sturdy dorsal fin crowns its back and three bony ridges run down its sides, culminating in a 2m-tall tail.

At under a minute, my initial whale shark encounter lasts a tad longer than my first kiss and is easily as memorable. With one swat of its powerful caudal fin, the shark, like the recipient of my first kiss, disappears just as swiftly as it emerged.

"That one's like a young racehorse," comments skipper McDonald, as we clamber back on to the Magellan. "But don't worry, we'll soon have you back in the water with him."

True to the skipper's word, we have two more chances to keep up with this young aquatic Phar Lap. By the third swim, I am confident enough to attempt photographs with my waterproof camera. Apart from wanting evidence of my encounter, I'm also taking part in an ongoing citizen science project run by shark study group Ecocean. If I capture a picture of the shark's left side, behind its gills, where its markings are unique, I can submit it to its online photo-tag library.

Using this method, more than 600 individuals have been identified at Ningaloo and the photographs help to track whale shark movements, contributing to our limited understanding of this elusive fish. Humans are the primary threat to whale sharks, through fishing for fins and meat, boat strikes and the effect of pollutants such as plastic bags. They are afforded protection under law in only 10 per cent of countries, including Australia.

By now the spotter plane, which goes up at 10am and flies for two hours, radioing sightings to several tour boats, has located another whale shark. As we hastily re-don flippers and masks, McDonald powers the Magellan out into even deeper sea and we are again the first tour boat in the drop zone.

After the crew confirm the sighting, the boat is slowly manoeuvred into position, 30m ahead of the shark, and snorkellers, divided into two groups, shuffle to the stern, ready for the call: "Go, go, go!"

Our second shark is a 5.5m female, travelling at about half the speed of the previous whippersnapper. This allows us to relax into our swims and float alongside her, then hover some more, staying with her for several minutes at a time.

We have five opportunities to enter the water with her and we emerge almost literally star-struck, many remarking on the shark's elaborate dot constellations and regal grace.

After a smorgasbord lunch, we have time for a snorkel back on Ningaloo, among turtles and swarms of intricately decorated minnows. But when you have just swum with the biggest fish in the sea, even the passing reef sharks now seem like small fry.

Daniel Scott was a guest of Kings Ningaloo Reef Tours. See original article