Whale Sharks

Category: Research | Date: Mar 03 2008 | By: admin

Just to let you all know that we in fact tagged a total of 17 sharks during the 13 day expedition. They tagged another one right at the end of the day and after I blogged yesterday afternoon. Brent took the remaining malfunctioning 2 back with him and we are planning another expedition with him for this November. The last day, yesterday, was a monster day for whale sharks with 7 sightings and 3 tagged. All 4 boats managed to enjoy watching and swimming with the biggest fish in the sea. This is Volker and Brent ready to tag!

You can imagine the celebration we had at Aqualand when the boats came back. It was like an armada of happy boats and smiling people Everyone was on such a high. It’s a great feeling to be part of a team that did something so interesting and unique. A lot of the people who had come down from Nairobi to support us were so delighted to be involved with the expedition. It was a real break from the humdrum monotony of life in a big city. I think it gave us all a chance to appreciate that we are part of something much bigger than just ourselves. This is the team - Brent holding the spear gun, me, Volker, Rob, Simon and David in the front.

Our accoustic array arrives tomorrow and we want to start tagging right away. I am liasing with our volunteer pilots to see what we can organise by way of air support. Everything else - boats, accomodation, gear - is good to go. We want to put the array out by the end of April latest so that we can give a report at the 2nd international whale shark conference in Mexico this July.

I have spent most of the day today struggling with the accounts. Maths was never my thing and I have a headache but am getting there slowly!! I keep thinking back to last week when we were in Watamu tagging. I can’t wait for the next expedition. I will give you a full report of sightings, tags etc when I get it from Brent who is flying home. We miss him already!

I wonder how many whale sharks there were out there today. They must be wondering where all the boats and taggers have disappeared off to! This is Rob and Volker - we were all so happy last night!!

For me personally, the expedition was a chance to really enjoy the exotic part of what we are trying to achieve here. Swimming with the shark last Tuesday was definitely up there among my most amazing moments. Now we are planning to really build on the momentum and apply for proper funding so that we can get our project off the ground. This is me in Watamu - it was such a happy time.

Many many heartfelt thanks on behalf of all the whale sharks out there to all of you who helped make the expedition such a success!! As we say here “asante sana” , “thank you very much”!!

5 responses so far

Category: Research | Date: Mar 02 2008 | By: admin

We  had nothing again yesterday which was day 12. One sighting but they didn’t manage to tag it.

We had a very nice BBQ at Simon’s in the evening. David played the guitar. We are really going to miss Brent when he leaves…We hope he will come back really soon!

Today is day 13. As I write this there are 5 boats out with a total of 44 people swimming with 5 different whale sharks. We have tagged 2 more today, bringing us to sweet 16. We’ve done it!! All the satellite tags are deployed, I can’t believe it!! Brent brought out 19 tags but he is not happy with the working quality of 3 so he will take them back to be serviced and fixed. We have put out 16 satellite tags and will now start with the streamer or ID tags. Expedition 2008 has been without doubt a success It is one the largest number of satellite tags to be put out on whale sharks in one place in history!

WE DID IT!!!

Julia is up spotting with Rob and she is clearly doing an amazing job. We have Rob in the gyro and Peter in the plane today. They report that there are whale sharks everywhere. I wish I was on the boat too. I guess you do too though so I am not alone! Here are 2 lucky people photographed by Mike the gyrocopter pilot last week.

I will update you later with the full report.

3 responses so far