Whalesharks!

A mix of 6 very excited photographers and wannabes met in the hotel lobby at 6.30am to make the trek to find whalesharks. We'd been warned it would be a long day, with a 45 minute ferry trip from Cozumel to Playa del Carmen, an hour drive to Cancun, and could be anything up to 3 hours to find the sharks on the boat. We were prepared, including having dosed up on seasick tablets for the high speed boat ride.

Cynthia and Miguel were our guides and Jaime our skipper - all wonderful, knowledgeable and very attentive. As it turned out, by the time we got to Cancun they told us they knew exactly where the sharks were and that there were heaps of them. A very exciting, bumpy ride for about an hour and we arrived to find about 20 boats surrounding numerous whalesharks in the 8-12m range!

On the way out Cynthia had told us the strict guidelines that if there's a shark only 2 people + the guide would be in the water at any one time with it. But when we got there and there were so many, they said we could all just get in and didn't need to get out, with the only restriction being that each boat is limited to an hour in the area.

We slipped over the side of the boat. "Follow me!" said Cynthia and 4 of us swam like buggery to meet up with a shark on its feeding course. "There's one over here" someone called out, and as we watched our first shark's tail disappear into the distance we turned tail ourselves and headed for the call. We positioned ourselves on whichever side of the shark was closest and madly started finning to the call from the various skippers of vessels "swim, swim, swim!!!". As that one swam through and overtook us in a jiffy, and we stopped to rest and decramp, I looked around and saw a fin coming straight towards us. I put my face in the water and sure enough "one coming through here", I yelled.

Initially we were all being careful not to hog or to get in the way of others' shots, but then we realised there were so many that even with all the other boats there was no shortage of whaleshark for everyone. I worried momentarily about whether we were stressing them out but watching them as we tried to keep up they didn't seem fazed at all. Often you'd be swimming beside them and they'd veer towards you and seemed to just expect you would clear the way - which of course we did, many a time kicking each other to avoid making contact with the shark.

When our hour was up we were exhausted from trying to maintain the pace of whalesharks and climbed back aboard our boat feeling very gratified. Grins from ear to ear, even my dive buddy who got a tad seasick on this leg couldn't stop grinning through the suffering. Jaime sped us off to Isla Mujeres for an in water lunch (delicious ceviche and beers) and we headed off for the 10 minute ride back to Cancun just as a downpour came through. Perfectly timed and a fantastic way to end the Cozumel leg of my trip.

I have only the slightest pang of diappointment that I had initially had another one of those trips booked when I first arrived before the rest of the fiesta crew turned up, and it was cancelled for weather. Of course I would have loved to do it again, but the other time may not have gone as clockwork as this one either, and I feel pretty damn lucky to have swum with whalesharks at all, let alone in two different countries now and with so much shark on this particular trip. I remind myself that many, many people never get this experience at all, and count my lucky stars.