A whale of a time? April 29

We've booked ourselves onto a whale shark adventure. This is a huge undertaking for me
as I haven't swum in the ocean since I was ... Well let's say a long time. As we
head to the boat one of the crew ask the driver to stop at the staff accommodation
affectionately known as Kenya ( Ken-ya loan me...) We climb on board the boat and the crew
are pretty excited because Stu the owner of the company is in charge which is rare
occurrence these days. The water is very calm and the skies are clear, so long as we
don't get seasick all should go well. The other good fortune is that we are the only
craft out on the water so any sharks we find are ours for the looking. We stop after a short
distance to have a practice snorkeling amongst the coral and Gav and I swim with a turtle
who's just cruising around.
We then head out and waits for the spotter plane. Yesterday they found 5 sharks but only
swam with one. Often they will dive deep down as they don't actually need to surface to
breath. We've been warned to stay away from their mouths. No problem here I'm
probably more petrified than they are. Within a very short space of time we're told to
get ready and encounter a small 3 meter shark. This first time is spent trying to avoid its
mouth as its young and inquisitive and all we seem to do it try to move away which results
in a face full of other peoples flippers. There are 2 groups of 10 so after a time we are
ordered to stop so that the other group can enter the water and then we are retrieved by the
boat. This process is repeated a few times and we start to get the hang of it. Suddenly
every one is ordered back to the boat as the plane has located a group of 4 including a much
larger one. There is a risk in leaving one that has been located because by the time you get
to the others they may have dived deep but the crew are bouncing all over the place with
excitement. 20 minutes later we arrive and get in the water and encounter a bigger shark.
Just as I think we are about to get out, the crew spot a second one and we swim along with
it. And then the big mama cruises in at 9 meters and it's a lot harder to keep up with
her. I give up at this stage and concentrate on taking photos of Gavern and even manage to
take a shot of a whale close to the boat with its mouth open. Weve ended up swimming with 5
different sharks. I can't even begin to describe what a truly amazing experience this
was. Even the crew are in awe and they tell us we've had a very rare experience.
Definitely one ticked off the bucket list.