So, we finally got scuba certified a while back (better late than never)and one of the things I really wanted to do before we left was dive with the whale sharks. There were two just a five minute boat ride from Yomitan on the North side of Torii Beach.
My wife is such a trooper! She is fearless...tigers, elephants, whale sharks...bring 'em on.
Now that's a big fish.
We got to touch them, and they did not feel like I thought they would, they were softer and almost spongy to the touch.
There were two in the net: a 10 footer and a 20 footer. The net was so large that you could not see across to the other side.
And you could not see the bottom of it. Knowing it was there, though, helped my wife not be scared of the abyss.
The Japanese fed them, which caused them to go verticle.
It also led them to come check us out and make sure we didn't have any food.
They were very graceful and much faster than you would think. They are so big that they don't look like they are moving that fast, until you try to swim next to them.
My wife takes better pictures. I wised up and gave her the camera half way through. The Japanese are only contracted to give us 20 minutes in the net, but we lucked out and got 34.
When they would swim by and underneath you, it was all she could do not to ride it (that's not us, but a cool shot).
It was amazing. This is a screen grab from a video that the blog won't let me upload, but was incredible. I was watching and filming my wife with the large one, when the smaller one swam off to my left. I thought nothing of it and continued to film until I got that feeling that something was there off to my left. I turned and the mouth of that enormous fish was touching my mask. It's really funny on the video as you can hear me jump. It then swam past with me pushing on it to move it to arms length before it went back and joined its companion. What an experience.
