We already had a great last dive the day before on Saturday. 12 manta and devil ray sightings.
Twelve!
This after a week of Jun randomly texting/emailing/IM-ing messages like: “My friend just came back from diving and saw four manta rays!”, “My colleague just came back from Tenggol and saw eight manta rays and a whale shark!”
Now, I’m not one to get my hopes up. It only leads to a bigger fall towards disappointment. And anything that I wish would happen, the mere act of saying it would be a guaranteed jinx to doom it out of existence. Business trips, prizes, work, personal — anything. (Call me a superstitious creature, if you will. I’m Chinese, it’s in our genes.) So through the years, I’ve learnt never to say anything or hope for anything.
So when we saw so many manta rays and devil rays, we were elated. In fact, I went into the water and a huge manta ray simply flapped its wings up the rocky reef. Twelve exceeded our expectations, especially since visibility was quite bad.
We were all smiles on the boat heading back to the resort, when suddenly, there was a commotion at the front of the boat. The dive guide had sighted something. He was speaking in Malay so we didn’t understand what he saw, but quickly, we learned it was a whale shark.
The boat was by this time turning and slowly moving towards the directions he was giving. I still had my tank and BC strapped on, but made my way to the front of the boat with some of the other divers.
The boat stopped and I looked over. And saw the head of a whale shark in the water.
So amazing. Even with just the blunt curving silhouette of its head, it was beautiful. Almost a metre wide. Dark brown. And the trademark white spots of the world’s largest fish running up its body were distinctly visible.
I remember my words: ”Jun! Jun! It’s a whale shark! It’s a whale shark!”
And that was all I said. After that, everything passed like a scene right out of a movie. I remember what I did, but it was still a blur, possibly in slow motion, almost like I was watching from another person’s point of view.
I made a beeline to the side of the boat behind the boatman’s seat where we go into the water. In a split second, I accessed the scene. The dive guide was already in the water; that was a good sign. Mask on, regulator in, and I flipped over backwards off the boat. I figured that the others would follow after. And if they weren’t, it was okay, they knew I was in the water and wouldn’t like drive off without me, which is pretty much one of the items near the top of the list of a diver’s fears.
I wasn’t going to miss the whale shark.
In the water was when I realised I wasn’t wearing my fins. But that’s okay, we can’t wander out too far anyways. (But damn, the tank and equipment are heavy without fins.)
I looked around in the water. The dive guide, to my left, was looking around in the water. No whale shark.
Jin, one of the guys diving with us, was also in the water by then, searching. By the time Jun swam up, enough time had passed. I told her it was gone. Swam away.
Still, we were high from the adrenaline for the rest of the day. So close. I saw my first whale shark live, albeit from a boat.
(I might have been so intent on getting into the water, it was all I remember. James says I passed him his fins before disappearing off the boat, but I recall no such thing. And why would I be holding his fins anyway? I think he’s the one who’s getting things mixed up in that moment. Still, I may have looked like I was possessed, temporarily entranced by the tractor beam of whale shark. I may not be wrong when I said the scene felt like a movie, and knowing me, it might not be far off to say that movie might have been a cartoon.)
There was a big thunderstorm on Saturday night.
Sunday came and things grew a little dismal.
We woke up before dawn so K and Kim could do their navigation, wreck and “night dive” tests. Unfortunately, the stupid dive centre guy gave them the wrong coordinates. James, the girls’ instructor is with us and not a local on the island, and so isn’t familiar with the bay either.
The water was so cold when we hit the thermocline. All we saw was sand. We were 20-degrees off course from the wreck. We also went really deep for too long.
To make things worse, because of surface time in between dives, we were forced to miss the morning dive going out to Tokong Timur, the island where “whale sharks were normally sighted”. I was like: “if that group sees whale sharks, I will cry.”
(I think they didn’t. I didn’t want to ask.)
The afternoon dive was around Tenggol itself, and we saw nothing except murky blue water.
Then I heard the “ding-ing” from behind. Someone had seen something and was signalling other divers. I turned around expecting to see a manta ray. And saw the huge head and wide mouth of a whale shark slightly above and bearing down towards me.
Long, sharp intake of breath. The first words in my mind — and I remember this distinctly because it was so loud and clear in my head — OH. MY. GOD.
It was almost a metre wide, the front of the whale shark. And it was HUGE. Massive! I don’t know what else to say, but I was drinking air, inhaling really deeply and a lot.
Ignoring the divers, the whale shark, all 5 metres of it, swam gracefully by, followed by an entourage of rainbow runners, remoras and a school of small fish. I just stared and stared (which explains why by the time I got the camera out, all I caught was its backview).
Its tail swayed slowly from side to side but you do not want to get hit by it; the whale shark is a powerful fish. Its movements look languid, but it was fast. And as abruptly as it appeared, it swam off into the deep blue, leaving us absolutely awestruck.
Just like that, it was gone.
We had seen our whale shark.
The rest of the dive was uneventful, but we were still on a high. Or maybe it was the hyperventilating and the onset of nitrogen narcosis.
Then half an hour later — Ding-ding! Ding-ding!
I turned, saw another whale shark swimming diagonally above. I looked down, Jun wasn’t looking yet. I hit my tank. Ding-ding. Ding-ding-ding. (It’s a dilemma, hitting the tank when seeing a pelagic; the noise could scare it away, as was the case when Jun saw the mola-mola(!) in Bali.) It’s also a dilemma because if you’re looking at your friend, you are not looking at the whale shark.
Anyway, she turned. Everyone had turned by now.
That was when the action started. Jun’s warned me many times before, I cannot rise up too fast. It’s dangerous. It’ll lead to the bends. What’s more, I don’t have a dive computer, or even a dive watch for that matter. (Time to save money…) I rely on my SPG to check my depth. Just the day before, we saw a manta ray do an almost vertical swim towards the surface; not good for a diver to try to chase it.
But that whale shark was going to get away. I was still half debating whether or not, when I saw Jin just go for it. Fast and hard butterfly kicks that were as powerful as they were determined, towards the elusive fish.
That was it for it. I was going after that whale shark. If anyone wants to scold me, they are welcome to do so — after this dive.
Left hand holding depth gauge, quick glances downwards every few heartbeats, right hand holding on to camera, I kicked as hard as I could and really, really swam.
And then the most amazing thing happened. The whale shark made a U-turn. I couldn’t believe it! Surely and steadily, it turned, the rainbow runners and remoras turning as well.
I stopped. At the edge of my peripheral vision, I think Jin slowed down too.
And the shark swam right back towards us. Its mouth was at an angle and a remora went too close to its lips, and I saw the whale shark shake its head a little irritated and the remora returned to its original position. And the whale shark swam right over me.
“Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod it’ssoclose it’ssoclose it’ssoclose it’ssoclose it’ssoclose Icanalmostouchit. Almostalmostalmost butcannottouch notouchingwhaleshark but ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygodit’ssoclose!”
I raised my hand up. I didn’t touch it, but my fingers were like 2 inches away from the bottom tip of its tail. This time, it swam off, penetrating the murky blue before disappearing altogether. And after that, I remembered to breathe again.
We were smiling all the rest of that day. We smiled the rest of the next day, and on the Tuesday morning that we went back to work, we were still texting one another to say we were still smiling.
The whale shark is awesome.
Tags: diving, pulau tenggol, whale shark
