Snorkelling with Whale Sharks
Take a look at our Whale Shark Gallery
Looming in the shadows ahead as you energetically kick with all your might while trying to avoid splashing is the largest creature you’ve probably ever seen in the sea. With white spots on it’s back and sides, it looks unusual and massive for a creature of the sea, and yet this largest of fish is a gentle giant. When you see one, your jaw drops and a sense of wonder and amazement overtakes you.
Whale sharks are typically seen off the North shore of Utila February through April, and August through September. In the first week of August, Captain Morgan’s divers were lucky enough to have encounters with whale sharks three times in one week. In this video, taken by one of our instructors, the whole snorkelling (snorkeling with one “l” for all you Yanks) experience is captured.
Some people ask why we don’t scuba dive with whale sharks. There are several reasons but the most important has to do with the brevity of the encounters we have with the whale sharks. Whale sharks, being fish and not mammals, don’t need to surface for air. They feed on plankton principally and as they feed, swimming upward toward the surface with their mouth open, they also drive tuna and other fish toward the surface who see the whale shark as a predator. From the boat, what we see is what’s known as a “boil”, so called because the fish jump out of the water to escape a perceived threat causing the water in a localized area to appear to be boiling.
Sea birds, in their wisdom, circle the boil and swoop down for a quick catch. It’s quite impressive to see and offers boat captains a way of knowing where a whale shark might surface. But, they don’t stay near the surface for very long usually and so We have to be quick to get into the water and in position to see them. To get everyone into the water with dive equipment without creating much splash and quickly would be simply impossible. The second reason is that they are truly such a beautiful creature, when they decide to head back to the depths, divers overcome by their magnetism might follow them deeper than they should go for recreational dive limits.
Captain Morgan’s Dive Centre, and the other dive centres in Utila, treat snorkelling with a whale shark as a bonus to a dive trip.
If a whale shark is spotted on the way to a dive site or in between dives, the captain will attempt to get snorkelers into position for an encounter. A 200 Lempiras (~ US $10) tip per person to the captain is the island standard if you are so lucky as to have the opportunity to get into the water for a snorkel experience. This is quite small when you consider the amount of money people pay in Mexico to go snorkelling with Whale Sharks.
Looming in the shadows ahead as you energetically kick with all your might while trying to avoid splashing is the largest creature you’ve probably ever seen in the sea. With white spots on it’s back and sides, it looks unusual and massive for a creature of the sea, and yet this largest of fish is a gentle giant. When you see one, your jaw drops and a sense of wonder and amazement overtakes you.Whale sharks are typically seen off the North shore of Utila February through April, and August through September. In the first week of August, Captain Morgan’s divers were lucky enough to have encounters with whale sharks three times in one week. In this video, taken by one of our instructors, the whole snorkelling (snorkeling with one “l” for all you Yanks) experience is captured.
Some people ask why we don’t scuba dive with whale sharks. There are several reasons but the most important has to do with the brevity of the encounters we have with the whale sharks. Whale sharks, being fish and not mammals, don’t need to surface for air. They feed on plankton principally and as they feed, swimming upward toward the surface with their mouth open, they also drive tuna and other fish toward the surface who see the whale shark as a predator. From the boat, what we see is what’s known as a “boil”, so called because the fish jump out of the water to escape a perceived threat causing the water in a localized area to appear to be boiling.
Sea birds, in their wisdom, circle the boil and swoop down for a quick catch. It’s quite impressive to see and offers boat captains a way of knowing where a whale shark might surface. But, they don’t stay near the surface for very long usually and so We have to be quick to get into the water and in position to see them. To get everyone into the water with dive equipment without creating much splash and quickly would be simply impossible. The second reason is that they are truly such a beautiful creature, when they decide to head back to the depths, divers overcome by their magnetism might follow them deeper than they should go for recreational dive limits.Captain Morgan’s Dive Centre, and the other dive centres in Utila, treat snorkelling with a whale shark as a bonus to a dive trip.
If a whale shark is spotted on the way to a dive site or in between dives, the captain will attempt to get snorkelers into position for an encounter. A 200 Lempiras (~ US $10) tip per person to the captain is the island standard if you are so lucky as to have the opportunity to get into the water for a snorkel experience. This is quite small when you consider the amount of money people pay in Mexico to go snorkelling with Whale Sharks.
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