richhagelin
Contributor
What is the time for the Whale Sharks up near Cancun?
Rich Hagelin
Rich Hagelin
Whale Sharks
- Thread starter richhagelin
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marcus8
Contributor
June thru mid September. Some tours start second half of May. In my experience, the best time frame is in July/August.
We are planning on doing mid to late July out of Mujeres.
alwaysdiving
Contributor
The whale sharks are here all year long, however, you can see more from late April to October, the mexican goverment decide to create a season in order to avoid the people bother them, this season start on May 15th to Sep 15th, we've been doing this tour for many years already, we have the fastest and more comfortable boats, considering we have to navigate between 20 to 32 miles we need these tipe of boats.
I did answer your PM Rich, I hope we have the chance to take care of you and your friends.
Best regards to all.
I did answer your PM Rich, I hope we have the chance to take care of you and your friends.
Best regards to all.
You'll love this trip. Last year when I did this we had to slow our boat down as we saw wild dolphins swimming by. Then when we swam with the whale sharks, there were tons of manta rays. On the way back the boat had to slow down as a turtle had surfaced. Totally worth catching the 6:00am ferry from Cozumel!
Mike
Contributor
Nothing is guaranteed. It's all pot luck unless you know the weather in advance to your trip. Storms, rains, etc can cause what the whale sharks are feeding on to disburse or disappear, if that happens the whale sharks won't be on the surface anymore and it usually takes a few days after bad weather for things to warm back up on the surface and the whale sharks food to reappear in abundance and them return to the surface to feed.
Many of the operators have a guarantee and when the whale sharks aren't there in abundance it makes for a nightmare of an experience as the fleet will all be searching for a whale shark to get near to avoid having to honor the guarantee. When that happens it's a cluster F, after hours somebody miles away will report a sighting over the VHF and then the entire fleet blasts full speed over the ocean toward the location, then every operator converges on a couple of whale sharks and everybody is angling to get their clients into the water for a chance at swimming with them. I've done the trip when their were over a hundred whale sharks and I've done the trip when it took them the entire day to find two.
mikeycanuk
Contributor
What Mike said, a cluster f....
Picked up around 7:10am and took to the dock. Waited and waited until they had everyone dropped off by 9am. Off we go and go and go and go and go......no stopping for a washroom break nada. I think around 12-1pm there was a radio call and we turned around and 90 mins later we find some whale sharks. Not to many but at least we found some. Now here it gets really sad. Most on the boat probably never snorkeled, or very limited expertise. A cluster f... Of the captain getting ahead of the poor creature and dumping his human cargo right on top of it. Most could not keep up with them and one guy panicked (like the panicked diver in the padi videos). I got lucky in I managed to keep pace with the second larger one but after a few minutes I felt guilty so got back in the boat, I was alone in the water.
And that was it. We stopped at a reef for lunch but there was nothing to see and man was it cold. Back to the dock where we all ran off the boat, no tips, around 5:30pm.
Never again. This operator was #1 on TA. The govt needs to clamp down on this insanity but it's Mexico so I ain't holding my breath, just my $ by never attempting this again. Unless it's a dive with vetted, experienced divers.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
Picked up around 7:10am and took to the dock. Waited and waited until they had everyone dropped off by 9am. Off we go and go and go and go and go......no stopping for a washroom break nada. I think around 12-1pm there was a radio call and we turned around and 90 mins later we find some whale sharks. Not to many but at least we found some. Now here it gets really sad. Most on the boat probably never snorkeled, or very limited expertise. A cluster f... Of the captain getting ahead of the poor creature and dumping his human cargo right on top of it. Most could not keep up with them and one guy panicked (like the panicked diver in the padi videos). I got lucky in I managed to keep pace with the second larger one but after a few minutes I felt guilty so got back in the boat, I was alone in the water.
And that was it. We stopped at a reef for lunch but there was nothing to see and man was it cold. Back to the dock where we all ran off the boat, no tips, around 5:30pm.
Never again. This operator was #1 on TA. The govt needs to clamp down on this insanity but it's Mexico so I ain't holding my breath, just my $ by never attempting this again. Unless it's a dive with vetted, experienced divers.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
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