I was reading Deborah Campbell's detailed report on her experiences with Toucan Diving and am curious about the term "Whale Shark". As I am relatively new to diving and not up on all of the dive lingo, I would appreciate it if someone could help me out here. I'm pretty sure they weren't talking about the fish! ;)

Tim,

A whale shark is a giant shark. It is not a whale, but it is very large and eats plankton. Go to http://www.oceanlight.com/html/whale_shark.html for some good pictures of what a whale shark looks like.

They are not easy to find, and are a real treat for any who have spotted them.
I might be wrong, but I believe that it is the largest fish on Earth, and maybe the largest non-mammal.

John

Thanks John for the info on the fish, what I'm inquiring about, however, is a reference by the Dive Master (Luis) on the dive boat "Blue Moon" when he said "Since today is Sunday...Whale Shark!" and apparently repeated the term on subsiquent dives. I figure that it is a slang term but haven't a clue as to what it means.

Oops!

Sorry!

Tim,

Lets see if I can make up for my mistake...

Go to Trip Reports/Long Report for Too-Short Trip: Sept 21-28 Part 2.

I think that this is the Whale Shark Reference that you are seeking.

If not, I promise not to annoy you with any more responses to your postings.

John

Hi, Tim--

Actually, yes... Luis was talking about the fish during his dive briefings. Especially on Bonaire, it's not unusual for divers to ask the divemasters to find particular fish and/or other critters for them. Sometimes the question is posed politely, as in, "Do you think it might be possible to find a seahorse at this dive site?" Occasionally, I've heard more insistent demands, such as, "You WILL locate a frogfish for me to photograph down there, won't you?"

Obviously, a divemaster can't make promises. This was the message Luis was getting across by closing his dive briefings with, "And since today is Monday (or whatever day): whale shark!" He always said it with a big smile, too.

I'm sorry I didn't include more detail explaining this reference in my trip report from September. All of us diving on the boat with Luis understood that he meant there were no guarantees of seeing anything special, and we found it a gentle and fun way for him to get his point across. In fact, after a couple of days, we'd all chime in when he said "whale shark!"

Hope this helps clear up any confusion!

Best regards,

Deborah

Sounds like a running joke to me. One dive master use to bring along a toy shark to plant as a joke for some of his dive groups.

We do on occasion have whale shark sightings around Bonaire. Although I don't think I'd be jumping in the water if Luis was the one crying wolf.

Thanks Deborah and Linda for the help. I didn't know that whale sharks could be seen around Bonaire. It would be great to catch a glimpse of something like that on a dive. The biggest fish I've seen so far are the 4-5 foot long Barracuda we have off the coast here in South Carolina.

we saw a whale shark in Bonaire two years ago while diving at webers joy dive site...it was hugging the drop off at around 30ft. and would have missed it if we had'nt looked up from the reef, in to the open ocean when divers ahead spotted it !!HUGE!!!sure is a thrill to be in the water with something that magnificent..25ft long at least ! put it on your life list of things to see...

One dive master in Bonaire one time brought a plastic sea horse on the dive and when he showed my husband he got all excited and started signaling the divers with cameras in our group to come see!! - Ha! Then the same dive master brought a plastic phone and bell on a dive of the Hooker and while we were hanging on our safety stop coming up he rang the bell pulled out the phone and signaled 'for you' and passed the phone over to one of the divers - some dive masters do bring some added humor to diving :-)