An Amazing Dive Experience

Well, I did it, my trip and risk to Mombassa was entirly and fully worth it, I dove with a Whale Shark 2 days ago. I did not have a water camera to visually archive this experience, which I don't even think would do the experience justice. If you have no idea what a Whale Shark might look like, why its named as such, check out good ol google ( http://images.google.co.ke/images?hl=en&q=whale+shark&gbv=2 ). Let me explain how the dive went.

We left the hotel at 9am with a German couple also in the van, thus making us a group of 3 to dive, the prior day had just been me, but no whale shark that day. We arrive at our dive site in a small fiberglass boat only able to really handle perhaps 4-5 divers.

The sea was a bit rough the faithful morning, being newer we got the german couple into the water first and they waited on the anchor line a few moments while myself and the guide got into the water. The waves where not the smallest and holding onto the line was a bit challenging and the german fellow was having trouble and second thoughts but was convinced to carry on, once under the water the waves can not matter so much at the right depth.

Still struggling at the surface the guide signalled for me to go down first and wait at the bottom, which I promptly did, arriving at the bottom the current didn't seem so bad, but visibility wasn't great and for example I could not see the surface or the other divers, so I waited...

I quickly saw a sea turtle going straight up to the surface, he must of been 7 or so feet away and seeing me decided to high tail it out of there. I could probably only see 15 - 20 feet all around me given all the spawn in the water, as I looked around and looked up to see if they were ascending yet a big big beast came floating towards me....... DIRECTLY towards me...... at this point I franticly looked around for the other divers (safer in numbers/if you have a problem)......... but alas I could not see ANYONE...........

So head to head like 15ft away was just me and a big big whale shark coming towards me... time seemed to stand still for a few moments... when finally it seemed it reconized me and turned away where I could see its full body.

As it left I wanted badly to swim to it or chase it, but alas I had no buddy and needed to stay on the line.

I quickly ascended to see if my dive buddies had also seen it, and luckily they had also seen it, as it basically passed mid-depth between us and between us horizontially as the dive line goes down on an angle......... so everyone was happy!!!!

I returned to the bottom for what seemed like an enterinty waiting for the guide and fellow divers, in my deep grave only surrounded by limited visibility, freaking out looking around me incase it came back for more bait fish as the fish decided to swim around me (I think for protection). Nothing is more freaking than waiting in the dark knowing something is out there just beyond your sight!

The german couple felt the waves too much and got back into the boat, where myself and the guide continued on, but I don't think I saw much of the ground, I was too busy looking up and around but alas the 60-180 seconds of sight would be all I got that day.

That was definitly up there in amazing experiences of my trip, a very very cool 2 minutes (which probably means it was only 1 minute).

Todays dive was even more wind and thus our second dive was cancelled, but near the end of the dive a handful of Dolphins showed up and stayed around for a very long time swimming around us at like 10ft seemingly wanting to play, but never coming closer!!! That was also cool =).

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