Stephane’s thoughts corner…

Stephane Bailliez's thoughts on everything

Amazing day ! I finally got to see a whale shark !

Mélisande, Becks, Ben and I decided to get on the WSORC boat and spend the whole morning looking for whale sharks on the north side of the island. After a few hours, morale was decreasing and we more or less thought that was over for the whole day when the skipper spotted one not very far from the boat. In a few seconds, we scrambled, put on the snorkeling gear and he dropped us nearly right on top of the whale shark. Time to recover from the entry and there it was. A MASSIVE whale shark roughly estimated to 7m, gently gliding at a depth of 3-5m, it went inquisitevely looking at the boat, circled around, and gone it was. During this brief but intense encounter, I managed to shoot a few pictures which don’t reflect the intensity of the event, but one of them show the snorkelers on top of the whale shark, it helps to get a sense of the size.

It’s also rewarding to see how such encounter can make people realize the magnificence of the marine life. Case in point with Mel, who is a newly certified Open Water diver (and certainly one of the best I have ever seen with buoyancy after such a short time), it was great to see her eyes shining of marvel after the event (too bad I could not take any picture). I’m glad she decided to stay a bit more to go on this trip, I told her a few days ago, it would be criminal to leave Utila without seeing any whale shark or at least try. I’m not sure I’m for anything about her decision to stay more, but I like the idea of planting the seed for it

As for me, I need to get more opportunities to have decent shots ! This is also encounters like this that make me realize how a DSLR would be useful for continuous shooting, or simply a camera with a faster shutter lag and writing speed.