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Today was our last day to go out to Gladden Spit with Avadon Divers to look for whale sharks. The first dive of the day was disappointing. Karen snorkeled above as Wayne dove with Sean and some other divers as deep as 80 feet underwater. Neither one of us saw much of anything. We saw a lot of blue water, lots of jacks but not even a single whale shark! We came back to our lunch spot and had lunch. Our manatee friends did not come to see us. We waited and waited for them but we think they have moved on to another location. Because our dive after lunch would be our finale opportunity to document whale sharks divemaster Sean decided to not do our dive until just before dusk, since the snappers are more active laying their eggs around dusk, the whale sharks should be more active, too. Then late in the afternoon, we went back in the water with Sean and this time we did not see one whale shark...We saw four! They were from 25 feet to 40 feet long! Karen could see two of them from the surface. Wayne saw them from below. The whale sharks acted like they were performing for us. They swam up and around the divers, swooping and turning diving. The divers reluctantly returned to the boat only because the air in their scuba tanks was getting low. The whale sharks were all close enough so we were able to get some excellent indentifying photos of the spots. We hope this will help other scientists in their whale shark research. We are so pleased that we had this opportunity to dive with whale sharks. We have been diving for many years and had never seen whale sharks until this week! Many thanks to the great staff at Avadon Divers, Placencia, Belize! Best Fishes, |
TODAY'S DATA Gladden Spit, Belize Position: 16º 39' N / 87º 58' W
On our first dive we saw schools of jack, again.
Our second dive put us face-to-face with whale sharks! (The mouth on this whale shark is about 4 feet wide!)
This young, 25-foot long whale shark has the top of its tail sliced off. This was probably caused by a boat propeller. |
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Day 10
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