Diving with Whale Sharks!

Since it's the middle of winter and most of our friends are freezing up in Boston, or Colorado, or Maine, we thought we'd share a little warmer weather with you...

Last June we spent about a week diving and snorkeling on Australia's wild west coast.  One area we visited was Ningaloo Reef, near the town of Exmouth and a full two day drive north of Perth.  It's a stark, remote place with excellent reefs, lots of wildlife, and whale sharks.  Whale sharks are gentle filter feeders and stop at Ningaloo during their annual migrations to feed on krill, plankton, and other small aquatic organisms.

We were lucky enough to get out on a day when no other boats were on the water, and had close encounters with several of these beautiful animals.  The ones we swam with were about 20-30 feet long; it's hard to tell from the videos, but they move so quickly it's hard to keep up.  We're not professional videographers, and apologize for the jerky GoPro footage...

One technical note: blogger may automatically downgrade the video resolution for you.  If that happens and the video is grainy, you can view these in HD by clicking on the little "YouTube" button on the video (which will open it directly in YouTube) and then using the gear icon at the lower right of the video to change the resolution to HD.  Here's a more complete explanation.

Enjoy!