Swimming with whale sharks , Ningaloo

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On our last day staying at Yardie Creek homestead, we were picked up earlish to go on a 

Whale shark snorkeling tour. This was something we both had been looking forward to.

The day started well as a super bouncy excited Kiwi called Lindsay bounded out of the bus to welcome us to the tour.

On the way to the boat pier went to meet 2 of the other members of the team, all equally friendly and full of life.

We had to get a tender out to the boat ”the Magellan” in two seperate groups.

The almost all girl crew (the captain Dan was a male) quickly had us all kitted up with snorkels , masks and wetsuits. 

And we headed off, it was only a short time later when we had all struggled into our wetsuits (well I did)

The captain stopped the boat and there was a general feeling of great excitement. 

We were thinking ok the whale sharks must be around already but no 

Dan (the captain) had spotted a ray in the water , but apparently not just any ray,

Elle our boat photographer quickly jumped in , quickly followed by the remainder of the crew ,except Dan  and they were off like mermaids. They were quick to respond that yes Dan had been correct and it was an Ornate eagle ray

These rays are classified as endangered and are very rare to see , with less than 60 sightings reported worldwide. These rays are extremely shy and as such are very wary of divers.

The crew quickly got us into the water , so we could see the ray and we did get a view  of it , but not for very long as it was keen to get away from us. 

The tales of the eagle rays do have spikes that are venomous to humans. So we didn t get to close 


There was sooo much excitement from the crew wiith lots of bouncing around and hugging, for one of the crew it  was her first ever sighting.


Anyway after the excitement died down we were encouraged to have morning tea and the boat headed outside the reef , in search of the whale sharks.

The tourism industry in this area is very centred around the Ningaloo reef and particularly the whale sharks between April and June and Humpback whales between August to September.

So the tour boat organisers all contribute to the use of spotter planes to find the whale sharks.

It  wasn’t long before they spotted this gorgeous creature.  We were truely blessed with this juvenile (presumed male, because they tend to migrate to the reef looking for food  at this time of the year)

He was so chilled that we all actually had the opportunity to swim beside him three times. There were 2 other boats also taking the opportunity to swim with him. He was just slowly swimming along. 

We did later have the opportunity to swim with a different much bigger whale shark, however this one was swimming pretty fast so it was hard to keep pace with him.

Whale sharks can grow up to 18 metres in length and can have mouths up to 1 metre wide. Their large mouths are perfectly formed to consume large amounts of plankton and krill. 

So despite their name the whale sharks are totally harmless to humans.

Every time we entered the water we had a member of the crew with us and also the amazing photographer Elle.

After swimming with whale sharks , we were taken back inside the reef and provided with an amazing lunch, which we honestly didn’t need as the crew had provided us with a constant supply of snacks all morning. We then got the opportunity to do some more snorkellling.


It was an absolutely fabulous day and we would both highly recommend Kings Ningaloo reef tours

They provided us with an amazing experience , every crew member was friendly and chatty and of course 

We got to be totally in the moment , because we had the amazing Elle capturing almost all of the above images (and very many many more) .


It was an amazing day, we returned to our van on site 125, tired but excited and 

Commenced preparing Ruby and Reggie to be back on the road the next day.

Until the next blog

Travel safe 

The Touring Knights 


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