It is the time to go and see the whale sharks again!

The whale shark is a fascinating creature to behold. With no known predators and a completely peaceful nature they are huge, harmless and sublime.
The first time we have seen a whale shark was around the waters Zanzibar in Tanzania.
I remember seeing a big shadow surfacing and we did our surface interval between our dives. I jumped in the water and when I saw this wonder I was crying in my mask. It was so beautiful what we witnessed at that moment! The whale shark was around 6 meters/20 feet and I thought that was huge!

Now we are living in Cozumel Mexico since 6 years and we go and swim with the whale sharks at least once a year. The first year we went to the island of Holbox the people were saying that they saw at least hundreds of them and we were like: “Yeah right, if we would see only a couple of them we would be extremely happy!”
We did see hundreds of them that year together with lots of manta rays. Too many to count and all of them so close. The mantas were jumping out of the water. You could hear the splashes from everywhere and the leaps where repeated several times in succession. Why do they do that? It looked like they were playing! The size of the whale sharks was huge! In average 30 feet. You feel so small when you are snorkeling next to these fish. It also looks like they are not moving at all! But you really need to swim to keep up with them. When you are looking in their eyes it is amazing and when to come and swim towards you at the surface they really look big.

Now the season begins again to swim with whale sharks: for more information look at http://www.divechoicemexico.com/


Some whale sharks facts:
As the largest fish in the sea, reaching lengths of 40 feet (12 meters) or more, whale sharks have an enormous menu from which to choose. Their favorite meal is plankton

Plankton is made up of animals and plants that either float passively in the water, or possess such limited powers of swimming that they are carried from place to place by the currents.
The word plankton comes from the Greek word planktos, which means ‘wandering’ or ‘drifting’. Plankton dominates the well-lit surface layers of the world's oceans.

They scoop these tiny plants and animals up, along with any small fish that happen to be around, with their colossal gaping mouths while swimming close to the water's surface.
The whale shark is a filter feeder. In order to feed, it juts out its huge jaws and sucks in everything in the vicinity. It then shuts its mouth, forcing water to filter out of its gills. The whale shark's flattened head sports a blunt snout above its mouth with short barbells protruding from its nostrils. Its back and sides are gray to brown with white spots among pale vertical and horizontal stripes, and its belly is white. Its two dorsal fins are set rearward on its body, which ends in a large dual-lobbed caudal fin.

Sexual maturity in both sexes may not occur until the sharks are over 9meters/30 feet in length. Age estimates for whale sharks are as high as 60 years, but no one really knows how long this species lives.

Different geographic locations appear to be preferred at various times of the year. Whale sharks alternatively may undertake either fairly localized or large-scale transoceanic migrations, the movements governed by the timing and location of production pulses and possibly by breeding behavior. Seasonal migrations have been postulated for various areas but more information is needed to confirm these patterns.

Reproduction
It was unclear whether it is oviparous (egg cases expelled from the female's body and hatched on the sea floor) or ovoviviparous (egg cases hatching in the mother's uteri, with the female giving birth to live young). Finally in 1995, an 11-meter female whale shark was harpooned off the eastern coast of Taiwan and 300 fetal specimens, ranging in length from 42 to 63cm, were taken from the two uteri. This discovery proved that the species is a live bearer, with an ovoviviparous mode of development. The egg-capsules of this whale shark were amber colored, with a smooth texture, and possessed a respiratory fissure (opening) on each side.