Whale Shark

 

We located a juvenile male whale shark in the bay just off the coast of La Paz, and I got the opportunity to swim with him. He was about 15 meters long. I asked Juan, the dive master, how he knew it was a male, and he said he swam down and looked. Duh.

 

The boat dropped us off in front of him, and we tried to keep up with him as he swam along, but with just a couple flick of his huge tail, he would get so far away. When we tired, the boat would pick us up again and repeat the process.

 

We were not supposed to touch it since humans can pass diseases onto the whale shark. The whale sharks were just beginning to arrive for the season; they come for plankton-rich water.