I thought I'd wanted to see one, but an instinctual fear shot through my body and sent my heart racing. Thank Buddha, what the sign had meant was whale shark, a giant plankton-feeding shark species. The one big no-no is grabbing the tail, as they will quickly dart away. Unfortunately, my encounter was an abbreviated one because one of the divers did exactly that, and our giant friend sped away. As I later found out I was extremely lucky to have seen a whale shark at all, especially considering it was my first dive.
Many instructors go diving for months without seeing one.
Apparently, the fisherman target whale sharks and giant mantas for slaughter because they break the fishing nets-another sad testimony to man's shortsighted destruction of our environment. After two dives at Sail Rock we proceeded to Shark Island-an ominous sounding name for such a beautiful dive site. This site is larger than Sail Rock and is replete with amazing corals. If you pass your hand above them, they pull themselves instantly back inside their protective, calcified homes. However, a much more aggressive, although smaller, fish lurks in these waters-the Triggerfish.