how many days should I book for whale shark diving

[heehee62]

I'm going to be in Placencia starting from April 29. How many days should I book in advance for whale shark diving? If I reserve just one day of whale shark diving now, will I be out of luck if I wanted to book a second day after I don't see any whale sharks the first?

I really want to see a whale shark and at the same time I want to minimize the number of days for whale sharks cause there are other things I want to see as well and if I went for many days and still didn't see any, I'd be way more disappointed than if I went one day and didn't see any.

Does anyone know the probability of seeing the whale sharks if you go just one day versus more days (i.e. 30% chance for one day, 70% chance going 2 days, etc)?

I probably would have stayed at Thatch Caye if I had seen this board before I booked my hotel; but now, I'm coming from Placencia.

Thanks.

 

[peterbj7]

Normally two days should do it, so long as they're the right two days. Things are pretty quiet in Placencia right now, and if they're as quiet during whale shark season (which we all hope won't be the case) you'll be able to get on a boat at short notice. I can't tell you which days you should book - you should talk to the local experts about that. The Placencia shops I know personally which do these trips are Seahorse and Avadon, to which we must add Splash as apparently they are also successful in sightings.

A shame you missed TCR - you would have enjoyed it a lot.

 

[Ralph Capeling]

During whale shark time, Splash boats fill up so if you want to dive with Splash, you should book ahead of time. Whale sharks can come a little early or late in the "scheduled" time period, recently it has been on the late side. To increase chances for you to see whale sharks, you should book several days and days that are not productive for whale sharks can be used for reef dives. Splash has a very high success rate and one of the reasons is that Splash tries to make sure that the whale sharks will be there on that day before heading for the whale shark zone. Splash can keep you entertained on weather down days with some excellent and fun inland adventure tours. Check us out at SplashBelize.com

 

[heehee62]

Thanks to both of you. I've decided I'm going to ask my already booked hotel if they will let me stay there 2 nights instead of 4 that way I can book 3 nights at Thatch Caye.
I'm glad 2 days is probably enough cause my traveling companions would never let me book several days of diving (they don't have their priorities right ).

If I can't switch to TCR, I'll probably try both Splash and Avadon (was disappointed that Seahorse never responded to my email questions earlier) just to get different experiences. I'm hoping to go to Glover's reef as well so that plus probably 2 days of whale sharking will let me try more than one dive operation. Maybe I'll see you in April Ralph.

 

[peterbj7]

Please do persist with Seahorse. I know Brian Young, the owner, and he just doesn't "think" computer enough. If you phone him he will respond though, and he is one of the best!

Actually I've just spoken with Seahorse. They have had constant problems with their previous email service and are just changing, to (I believe) seahorsedive@gmail.com. I have also recommended they register here so they can reply to you, and I expect that later today they will do just that.

That said, great news if you can get to TCR. If it's during whale shark viewing they'll take you down and very likely you'll see one or more.

 

[SeahorsePlacencia]

Hi Brian Jr. here, I am new to the forum, and don't know how thinks work yet.

Thanks Peter for bringing this to my attention.

We have been having problem with our last e-mail provider they have been hit by different spammer and hacker over the past few month and we have not been receiving our e-mail regularly or any at all. We are currently transferring our e-mail address to seahorsedive@gmail.com and instructed our webmaster to change the e-mail address on our website. However, there a few articles and website that has the seahorse@btl.net, so we will still have it active but will now be using the seahorsedive@gmail.com .

I would agree with Ralph and Peter, I would recommend multiple days to ensure that you have the best chances of seeing a whale shark. More so, I would recommend coming a few days after the full moon, as this is normally the peak of the spawning. More food equals more whale sharks, more whale sharks equals better sightings.