We have left the rubbish-filled Port of Tual and we are heading to Namatote Island were apparently you can see whale sharks. We arrive in the afternoon with a Swiss boat called C’est Le Vent which is pronounced Say Le Vong in French.
Early in the morning we get up at about half past five to get ready to see the whale shark or hopefully sharks. Apparently, there are two babies (which are boys and each about six metres long) and a nine-metre female. The locals say females are hard to catch to tag.
After a big breakfast and a lolly from the Christmas calendar we zoom towards one of the fishing stations out in the bay. As we get closer, we see two fishermen throwing small fish in the in the water while another two wander around.
“Look! Look!” shouts Pierre from C’est Le Vent. A big spotty, black whale-looking thing slips right under the dinghies. Lukie slides in followed closely by my mum then me and Daddy. I get my camera out of the boat and start snapping away.
A six-metre whale shark sucks in water with small dead fish too. It was like a two-year-old. It spilt lots of fish and swam after other little fish (which were alive and swimming under him) and didn’t seem to notice us.
Dolphins also came in at one point to get some of the fish and the birds in the sky never really dived down. The shark swam under the fishing station and then we all started to talk.
“Wow!”, “That was big!”, “Moan!!!” That “moan” was not from us. The whale shark swam into the dingy rope!
It thrashed around spraying lots of water. Finally, it dived down again, we all thought it was gone, but no! It came back up chasing lots of fish that stayed just out of reach of its massive mouth. Just then a diving boat arrived, and the instructor told them to hop out.
We all climbed up onto the fishing station (which was called a bagan) and watched the divers descend under the six-meter baby. Up here the view of the whale shark was not obscured by the blurry water, so it looked cool. You could see the stripy and dotty white pattern snaking down its rigged back.
We left for Triton Bay the next morning. By the way, we called the whale shark Frank and went back to see him another day, he was so cool.
SV Bob The Cat 