some whale shark photos from Belize

We offer trips out to dive with whale sharks during the spring full moons. Usually you get a two or three minute encounter but last monday we had one shark with us for about 15 minutes.

We all got tired, swallowed half the ocean and had run out of air (0psi in tanks) before the whale shark had tired of us.

He would fixate on a diver and swim around keeping that diver in front of him until he picked up on another diver and do same to them. Good job they only eat plankton because I could have fitted whole down that throat.

Here are the best of shots I managed to get.

Enjoy

Martin

That last one is the poster for the upcoming 'Attack of the Killer Whale Shark' movie, no?

Martin, i think i truly hate you for this...

nice stuff but I dont like the fake blue

Some great shots there, I did not know the water was like that over there

Small ones will often follow you around over here as well.

Hows the year going over there?, not too many here, like maybe one shark for all the boats if you are lucky after hours and hours of searching by planes. Don't know whats happening but it does seem less and less every year.

This year has been pretty good so far, about a 60% success rate, although some operators think the sightings are on a general decline.

We had one spectacular trip in april with 20 minutes of sharks on both dives but they were deeper than this one. I was shooting video and have a clip of two sharks almost bumping into each other then swimming over my head. I haven't had much time to do anything with the video footage yet.

I think the big ones have worked out that we are not worth spending much energy on and will pass by but not hang around. They are feeding amongst the spawning snapper and spend most of the day hanging around waiting for the fish to get horny so it is not a plankton feeding event and the water is generally clear. They are very interested in the divers bubbles, the theory is that they think it is snapper spawn.

Just for the record, the images were shot in raw, imported to cs2 then had a slight levels adjustment. It was good viz and shot at noon. So it as I would expect a Caribbean blue background. .

I'm glad you all enjoyed them.

Martin

Thats cheating on SCUBA...we have to snorkel.

What I want to know is why are they on the surface? They are certainly not feeding and also evey year straight after a Coaral Spawn they disapear for a few days

They also dissapear for a few days when ever the Orcas turn up.

They have been spotted just sitting on the bottom having a sleep or something.

I have only ever seen a couple 12 meter one's, most here are small around 5/8 meters.

Those are some great shots! I was fortunate to have been down there on the full moon in May 2 years ago. They are an amazing sight! They seemed so curious (or hungry) that they would come really close, but they were very careful to twist they're bodies at the last minute to keep from touching you.

Rick

nice shots Martin, thanks for posting...

sorry if this is a silly question, I know whale sharks are pretty big..probably outside the range of strobes. Are these all natural light photos, or did you fire your strobes also?

All shots are natural light. The regulations that control the park do not allow strobes plus you have to be pretty mobile, lugging a camera/strobe set up would definitely hinder you. Also the sharks are between 15 to 25 feet therefore I think a strobe would not help out the lighting, in fact it may provide an unnatural hot spot on the image.

If anyone is planning a trip down to Belize to experience this event the next full moon is May 30th and so the snapper will spawn for a few days around that time attracting the whale sharks. The next moon after that is near the end of June. PM me if you need anymore info it will be impartial advice.

Martin