Interested in swimming with whale sharks on your visit to Utila? Read along for all you need to know…
Whale sharks are the largest carnivorous fish and often referred to as gentle giants of the sea.
Anyone who comes to Utila dreams of being lucky enough to go swimming with whale sharks whether it be while diving or snorkelling. Utila boasts the ability to see whale sharks year round however the best time to spot these gentle giants is in April and May.
The day I arrived in Utila, it had been over a week since there had been swimming with whale sharks. There had been no sightings. While I was optimistic, I braced myself for the realistic possibility that it would be unlikely that I would be diving with the whale sharks. It wasn’t until I did my first dive that I was told that it would be unlikely that I would even dive with the whale sharks given they preferred deeper waters to feed rather than theme shallower reefs we’d been diving.
Things started to shift on my third day, as there had been more sightings of whale sharks. That afternoon a bunch of people returned after chartering a boat with amazing photos of incredibly large spotted whale shark contrasting with the deep blue sea. I was so jealous! Why wasn’t I on that boat?!
My mission for the following day was to see whale sharks. I walked dive shop to dive shop asking if they were going out to see whale sharks today. All responded no, boats were either full already or there had been no sightings today therefore they wouldn’t be going out. After our fourth dive shop we returned to our own shop (Underwater Vision) where I asked the captain whether there were any whale sharks out there. He looked at me with a smile and said “ssshhh I just got a call from my friend, they are out there”.
by Wayne Osborne
I found a way to get my name on the next dive boat going out from our dive shop and then a group of us begged with the dive master to let us on. She said there was room for us on the boat but not enough equipment. She pulled up a kids mask and said these are too small, I told her I’d take it and make it work. Between the 5 of us extra snorkellers we had kids masks, googles with no snorkel and ripped flippers. We didn’t care, we were optimistic we’d be seeing whale sharks today.
We cruised out into the deep sea. We’d look over at our captain every now and them who would be on his phone or fixed on the horizon looking for birds. Birds on the surface of the water and flying above are attracted to the small fish or plankton which are being brought to the surface by tuna which are chasing them. Whale sharks are also eating the plankton, so seeing birds in the distance is a good sign that there will be whale sharks in the area.