Whale Sharks a little information

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I have snorkeled with whale sharks in the Sea of Cortez, and I can attest to it being a truly amazing experience. We were out of La Paz, Baja Sur, with Baja Expeditions on a live-aboard that specifically runs whale shark trips in April each year. We were lucky enough to be in the water with them on 5 different occasions on that trip, and nothing in my diving experience can quite equate to hanging in the water and watching a 35-40 foot shark appear out of the plankton murk, then swimming down to eye level and pacing it till I ran out of breath. I still get breathless just writing about it now 3 years later.
 
I have swum with them often in the gulf of Thailand, and the injuries are usually from being whacked by the tail.

You have to remember that these things are the size of an average bus!! even getting hit gently by a bus would probably do a bit of damage.

The other injury is skin scrapings. It can almost take you down to the bone. Kinda like an asphalt burn.
 
Thanks for the information on the Whale Shark. I was just Diving with them in the south of Thailand on an island called Koh Tao the divesite was Chumphon Pinnicle. The Sharks where there for the last 3 days that I dove and I counted 7 diffrent ones ranging from 5 - 8 meters long. This was my dream since I had started diving and it was finally a reality on April 29 2005 was the first on I had seen. Out of the 8 dives I did in the 3 days with them the condidtions were quite well. The Sharks were between 20 M down and the surfuce so I heard alot of beeping from evreyones dive computers. Water temp 32 Degrees. One of the dives was the most remerable because there was no current at all and you could swim the whole dive with the sharks without using too much air up and not to mention we were only 8 in the water with the shark. There at one point was 2 sharks swimming past each other. Truely an incredible site. We had 2 still camera's and a videograper so we got amazing footage of the event. I dove with 3 diffrent dive company's becuse not all were going to that site each outing. New Way/ Ban's/ Junction were the company's. To all that were there Rip Rip!
 
Good information - a search from the web will also yield some good resources for those who wish to learn more. As with everything - beware, some of the information out there isn't entirely accurate!

For those who have whale shark photographs you can get involved to help with ID - http://photoid.whaleshark.org

These guys have been working at this for years and now with digital imagery so accessible it is really taking off. There are several other photo id libraries being built out there - I'd encourage you to support any you can...my favourites are those who SHARE their knowledge with others including the general population...our goal is to educate everyone and to find out what is best for the whale sharks.

An international Whale Shark Conference is being held next week here in Western Australia with delegates from all over the world. I am very anxious to hear what is what and what the goals of the global community will be.
 
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