New Guinea- Cenderawasih Bay- Whale Sharks

We left civilization (Sorong) and it took us 6 days to get to Cenderawasih bay, the home of the gentle giants, the largest fish in the sea, the beautiful and elegant Whale Sharks. Getting here and finding the whale sharks was truly an adventure. Take a look at our sailing tracks to see how much back and forth to the fishing platforms we did for 2 days in search of these enormous filter feeders. Cenderawasih bay was very deep, too deep to anchor so we literally left our yacht afloat, jumped in our dinghy to motor over to the fishing platforms to investigate if there were any whales sharks to be seen. On day two our last attempt I had truly given up, but low and behold we got lucky, real lucky 3 whales sharks. Based upon their size we had 2 very young and an older whale shark that we had the privilege to swim with.

Whale sharks can get up to 40 feet/12 meters long, weigh up 20 tons, there lifespan is somewhere between 70 – 100 years old. Sexual maturity is reached at 30 years old, females give birth to live pups. The whale shark population has been declining, and it is considered an endangered species due to the impacts of fisheries, bycatch losses and vessel strikes. One of our whale shark’s pectoral fin had cuts in it, most likely from a propeller . These fish were awesome their behavior reminded me of sweet puppies swimming around and going in for a treat.

Click here to see our sailing tracks: https://share.delorme.com/illimite