(reposted) Whaleshark Exploration Program

On the 24th to the 30th of March, the crew from Wicked Diving and Golden Buddha Beach Resort organized the first Whale shark Exploration Program.
The main objective for this project was to try and find whale sharks and identify them by taking pictures from their spot pattern on their skin. The project was inspired by the ECOCEAN Whale hark Photo-identification Library (www.whaleshark.org). This is a visual database of whale shark encounters and of individually catalogued whale sharks. The library is maintained and used by marine biologists to collect and analyze whale shark encounter data to learn more about these amazing creatures. Founder of the program, Brad Norman, has been collecting information since 1994 and so far there have been around 4000 photographs submitted and 1200 whale sharks are already identified from all over the world.
The Library uses photographs of the skin patterning behind the gills of each shark and any scars to distinguish between individual animals. Cutting-edge software supports rapid identification using pattern recognition and photo management tools.

Golden Buddha Beach Resort, the only resort on the beautiful and isolated island of Koh Prathong, is an eco friendly resort. This island is probably one of the closest places to a divesite called Richelieu Rock, an underwater pinnacle in between the mainland of Thailand and the Surin Islands. In the past, this dive site held one of the best records for whale shark encounters in Thailand and therefore we planned to dive this place extensively over a period of three days.

In total 9 guests of the resort joined (part of) the program, and it turned out to be a great group of divers from all over the world:
Dick, Marianne, Wouter & Elke Wynberg - Dick and Marianne grew up in South Africa, but have been living around the whole world. Lets say they are dutch
Susan Marx and Chris Serjak - S African / US, but currently working in Afghanistan
Nick Tan - Canadian
Melinda Friend – Originally from the US, but currently living in Switzerland with her family
Sander Koch and Daniella deBuvry – from Holland, but currently living in the Middle East.
Darcy Bradley (US) and Adam Jeng (Sweden) - trainees from Wicked Diving joined the program to guide the dives and help with the logistics.

The program started with a presentation about whale sharks, the Ecocean Program and a briefing on the dive site and a dive safety briefing on the evening before the first trip.

The next day we left the resort by private speedboat and we were off to Richelieu Rock. After only 45 minutes we arrived, the fastest I have ever reached this dive site from land. We had very good surface conditions, as the sea was nice and calm. Expectations were high and I was the first one to jump into the water. When I looked down to check the visibility and the current, the first thing I saw was a 4 meter Manta Ray passing over the pinnacle!!!
Needless to say that everyone was quite quick getting into the water. Luckily everyone saw the Manta Ray on the first dive, so that was a good start of the program. We did three dives on Richelieu Rock that day, most people were armed with a camera and we saw lots of different marine life.

The second day we did our first dive on Richelieu Rock and then decided to try our luck a bit further to the west and took the speedboat to the beautiful Surin Islands. The Surin Islands offer some of the best snorkeling on Thailand and we all jumped in close to one of the white sand beaches for a bit of exploration. The second dive was on a dive site called Turtle Ledge, a sloping reef, dense with corals. No whales harks but a very nice, easy and relaxed dive, which was a nice break as Richelieu Rock does have a bit of current once in a while. Then we had lunch on the islands itself, and after a quick dip in the beautiful lagoon, we were off to do the last dive of the day at R Rock. Again, loads of stuff to see, but mr Whale shark didn’t visit us that day.

On the last diving day our group certainly had the best dive where we had another massive Manta Ray circling us for about 20 minutes, giving us a beautiful acrobatic show. Still no whale sharks, but by the end of the day I am sure we must have seen every single fish on Richelieu Rock. I even suspect they started to get to know us by now…

Since Richelieu Rock is the only rock formation for miles around, it attracts an amazing variety of marine life, both small and big. Having dived around most places in Thailand I can say it is certainly one of the best dive sites around. The list of stuff to see is endless and it seems like there is something special in every nook or crannie that you look. Tiny little boxfishes, seahorses, mantis shrimp, tomato anemonefish, zebra moray eels, Jans and Schultz pipefish, schools of barracuda, lionfish, scorpionfish, ribbon eels, schools of fusiliers and jacks, carpets of anemones and soft coral, nudibranchs, it’s all there.

Of course it is a popular dive site and most companies go there by liveaboard boats as part of a 4 day / 4 night schedule. But by being so close to the resort, we managed to avoid the crowds and most of the time, we were alone underwater on the last dive of the day.

Day 4 of the program was a rest day and on day 5 we had a local snorkel trip arranged around the island of Koh Prathong. Rumours have it that in the past, whale sharks have been seen close to the rivermouth, so we decided to try our luck. Again, no whale sharks, but a great day on the longtail and it’s always nice to explore a bit around these isolated islands.

Despite having not seen any whale sharks, we all had a great week. This is all part of the game. I know people who have been diving tropical waters for years and have never seen one and I had students in their Open Water course seeing them on dive 3 and 4. But I guess it would be as much fun if it was a guarantee.

Thanks a lot for all the people who joined the trip and for Golden Buddha Beach resort for setting up the program and providing accommodation for the staff of Wicked Diving. Hopefully we will be able to do more whale shark exploration in the future.

And if you are ever lucky enough to encounter a whale shark under water and you happen to have a camera with you, don’t forget to take a few pictures of the spot pattern on the left side behind the gills and send it in to: www.whaleshark.org


Marcel Bruijs
Wicked Diving