Snorkeling with Whale Sharks

A key factor in why we chose Cabo San Lucas for our most recent holiday destination was the opportunity to snorkel with whale sharks. This experience turned out to be both incredible and absolutely nothing like I had expected it to be.

For starters, for the biggest fish in the world, they blend into their surroundings pretty well. There is a 30-foot shark in the picture below and I bet you wouldn't even know it was there if the species name wasn't in the blog title ;)

Documentaries present these animals as placidly swimming through crystal blue waters, but in actual fact they can REALLY move when they want to. I'm a reasonably fit guy and I struggled to keep up with them for even a minute or two in each of the 4 dives we did. I originally hoped to scuba with them but now understand how fast you need to be to see them at all. Unfortunately groups of divers are just too slow to reposition and trade off to ever stand a chance of seeing anything.

On top of that, the water was so thick with nutrients and plankton (which is what draws the animals to the area) that visibility is very limited and it can be tricky to see the shark until its practically on top of you. Which is pretty daunting when its 30 feet long and you're not supposed to be within 6 feet of it and its emerged RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU.

 The image below is actually a composite of 3 video frame grabs from our goPro. Even with a very wide angle lens, capturing the entire animal in a single shot is nearly impossible, so I resorted to a little digital trickery to try and give you all a feeling for the size and shape of the whole creature. To drive home how large these animals can get, the ones we saw here were juvenile males and a full size adult can be more than 40 feet in total.

Hats off to the locals of La Paz for doing their part for conservation as well. Our guide provided us with wristbands which gave us access to the park area and there was an enforcement boat verifying we should be in the area within 10 minutes of arrival. They also watched from a distance to ensure that no more than 4 people were in the water at a time and that we didn't overstay our allotted limit.