Whale Sharks

We did it again this year, swam with wild beasts in the open ocean.

We camped out at Arta Plage (beach) and on Tuesday, hired a local boat to take us a few hundred yards from shore. Brown fins pierced the waves and the instant the whale shark seemed to be still, we dove over the side of the boat, flippers flapping, and shoved snorkel gear into our mouths to see the magnificent creatures face to face. Literally.

I went out with Henry, Tom went with Maggie. Henry was a little nervous and wanted to wait until the sharks were far from the boat but the waves were too strong and by the time I could swim (while holding his hand) closer, they had disappeared. I was becoming exhausted from climbing in and out of the boat and my upper thighs were sliced and bleeding. There are no ladders, only the unceremonious grappling of hands and grunting and rolling over the side, to flop to the bottom of the wooden boat, much like a beached whale, trying not to put flippers in someone else's face or get flapped by theirs in my own face.

Finally a whale shark came right next to the boat, calmly. I jumped in and looked...we were eye to eye. I could have stroked his face. I do, in fact, know that it was a 'he' because all the whale sharks in the Gulf of Tadjourah at this time of year are male. No one knows why. Henry slipped into the water beside me and put his face under water just in time to watch the creature amble by us, waving his pointed tail side to side. Henry then climbed back into the boat, with me launching him from the water, and declared that was sufficient for him.

Apparently Maggie wouldn't get back into the boat with Tom until Tom said he was exhausted from battling the waves, dodging jelly fish and trying to keep Maggie up with the moving fish. She just couldn't get enough and swam with them for maybe thirty minutes, trying to get as close as possible.

I continued swimming for another hour. At one point a whale shark rolled onto his back. I've never seen this before (this is our fourth year swimming with them) and was in awe of his pristine, brilliant white underbelly. An American teenage boy was swimming with us. He had been swimming beneath the shark and wasn't aware the whale shark had rolled. When he moved to come up for air, the two of them had a small collision. I could hear his joyful, slightly terrified cry under the water and we all surfaced laughing, exhilerated, awed.

After getting over the initial fear and adrenaline, swimming with whale sharks is remarkably calm and soothing. They are at ease in the water, a massive, gentle, gorgeous fish with beady little eyes and a wide, frightening though toothless mouth. They seem weightless though they weigh 13-15 tons. Swimming beside them, as they sway from side to side, blue and yellow fish dancing along their gills and fins, I remind myself that there are even larger creatures in the ocean, there are stranger ones, hidden ones, colorful, bizarre, dangerous, gentle.

The ocean, like the country of Djibouti, is wild and untamed, filled with stark beauty in unusual places. Sometimes I have to look into the eyes of a young woman, rather than avoid them, as she presses a sweaty palm on the window of our car, begging for coins. Sometimes I have to get up before the streets are filled with exhaust and honks and see the sun rise over the ocean on a solitary run. Sometimes I have to focus beyond the black crows and look for wild green parrots in our front yard. Sometimes I have to don a snorkel mask and fins and jump into the wild unknown. But there is beauty here. Gentle, dangerous, wild beauty.