Christmas morning we were up early and ready to go do some classic north side diving, with a beautiful blue sky morning, calm seas and our hopes high for a whale shark sighting!

Our first dive we made in Turtle Harbor at The Pinnacle, an awesome deep dive with some great overhangs and cavern entrances as well as a beautiful reef table top. We were rewarded for our Christmas morning efforts with stunning visibility and plenty of marine life to see.

After all the divers have returned from the first dive we head out into the deeper water with an expectant buzz about the boat and sure enough within just 5 minutes our sharp eyed boat captain has spotted some small birds diving on an area of water. We set off to investigate and as we get closer we see small tuna breaking the surface, feeding on the same food as the whale shark below them.



With the boat engine idle we drift for a little while waiting to spot the shadow in the water. While we are watching we see a large dorsal fin break the surface about 30 meters away from us, a tail fin follows and then we can see the top of it's huge mouth as the whale shark filters opens wide to filter food from the water.


Our boat captain skillfully maneuvers us in front of the shark and we carefully slip into the water so we don't scare this gentle giant away. We manage to swim with this whale shark for many minutes, the shark unconcerned about us it continues to feed at the surface as we snorkel alongside with tuna darting all around. It starts to get a little difficult to keep up with the seemingly slow moving shark and the boat  maneuvers to pick up everyone.

After a headcount we get spotters back on the roof of the boat to help our boat captain in locating the shark as it comes up and after
10 minutes we find ourselves in the perfect spot as the shark decides to surface right next to the boat! Once again we are lucky enough to swim for several minutes alongside this majestic creature.

Between us we manage to get some great photo's and capture some video footage as well. We collect all the relevant data for submission to the (ECOCEAN whale shark research database) so we can start to track the travels of this young 7m female.

The ECOCEAN Whale Shark Photo-identification Library is a visual database of whale shark encounters and of individually cataloged whale sharks. The library is maintained and used by marine biologists to collect and analyze whale shark encounter data to learn more about global populations of whale sharks.


We have two separate snorkels with this particular whale shark and we get a bonus of a passing pod of dolphins as well!

After this with a euphoria buzzing around the boat we jump back in the water to make our second dive along Blackish Point and have a wonderful dive of cruising along the ice age sea wall 18m(60ft) below the surface exploring the eroded overhangs and finding Tarpon, Atlantic Spade Fish, and a school of Horse Eye Jacks, amongst  all the regulars we expect to see here.

A great morning's diving and a fantastic way to start off our Christmas!