Multiple Encounters With Whale Sharks
Near Orange Beach
See Whale Shark Photos at the bottom of this page.
August 13, 2009 - Orange Beach, AL (OBA) - Multiple close encounters with large Whale Sharks
in the Gulf of Mexico have been reported over the last couple of weeks. According to Gary Emerson of Gary’s Gulf Divers, he has heard numerous reports of Whale Shark sightings
from Panama City to Destin to Orange Beach, all in the last couple of
weeks. The Whale Shark is a slow moving filter feeding shark that is the
largest living fish species. It can grow up to 40' in length and can
weigh up to 15 tons. It's average speed is about 3.1mph. Four groups of divers and anglers from Orange Beach who we
interviewed have experienced firsthand close encounters with these
curious creatures. Below are their stories.
Whale Shark with its entourage of Fish
Photo taken by Diver Greg Oliver of Fort Morgan
diving from
the Last Cast boat
Encounter 1:
On August 2nd, local divers Mark Dowsey, Jim Bonifay and Greg Oliver were out on Mark’s boat, Last Cast, to dive the bridge rubble 7.6 miles south of Perdido Pass. While trying to position themselves over the dive site, Mark noticed his
depth finder showing an abrupt change from a water depth of 65’ to 25’. This erratic change in water depth occurred several times before the dive team zeroed in on their dive spot. Mark thought his bottom machine was going haywire.
Recovering from surgery, Mark stayed on the Last Cast while Jim and Greg
made their first decent to spearfish. Shortly after Jim and Greg went
down, the pair came right back to the surface. Greg quickly handed Mark his
spear gun and excitedly asked
for his camera.
"There's a Whale Shark under the boat", said Greg. While Mark was taken
aback by the claim, this would explain the abrupt changes in water depths
he was seeing on the depth finder.
Greg descended with his camera and started taking pictures. The
Whale Shark, curious about the divers, approached them several
times. Greg attempted to swim away so that he could get a better picture, but the
25-30' Whale Shark kept turning and following him.
After they got a few pictures, the dive team headed back to the
boat to think about what they had just seen. Mark, who's been diving in
the Gulf of Mexico for 7 years, has seen hundreds of other sharks but never a Whale Shark.
As the team recovered from their unusual encounter, they headed off to another dive spot where they saw dolphins and hundreds of manta rays jumping
out of the water. "The manta rays were as small as six inches wide to six feet wide
and were jumping like I'd never seen before. It was a perfect day on the gulf”, said Mark.
Encounter 2:
On August 5th, Capt. Chip Day on Chipper's Clipper spotted and
photographed a Whale Shark about 10 miles south of Orange Beach.
The Chipper's Clipper fishing team were fishing next to the Intruder and
Class Act charter boats when a large Whale Shark decided to join the
party. The photos of the Whale Shark taken by Capt. Chip are
published in a slide show at the bottom of this article. Capt. Chip recently made national news for his sighting of a Great White
Shark on July 25th. The OBA Website published the Great White
article on August 4th and within a week, the story made it to CNN and a
number of other media outlets. This Whale Shark sighting by Capt. Chip occurred the day after we
published the
Great White Shark article.
The next two encounters took place on Sunday, August 9, 2009; encounter 3 at about 9:30am, and
encounter 4 at about 7:30pm. Encounter 3: Divers Greg Allen and Philip Pouncey with Capt. Ken Christian went out
for a day of diving on Sunday August 9th. While Greg has been diving the
Gulf waters for 15 years, this was Philips first open water dive in the
Gulf of Mexico. They were diving the Allen Liberty Ship about 7 miles south of Orange Beach. Ken stayed on the boat while Greg and Philip went down for their second dive of the day. During their assent, the pair were 35’ from the surface when Greg first saw a large dark shadow approaching them from above. Greg pointed out the shadow to Philip, who had just before this trip read our article about the Great White Shark encounter. Greg said that Philip had an
"out of body experience".
"The Whale Shark moved slowly and gracefully through the water
with cobia, remoras and hundreds of other fish surrounding him" said
Greg. He went on to say, “The tail was five feet wide from tip-to-tip”.
During the first sighting, the Whale Shark was about 25’ above the divers. After the divers made it to the surface, the Whale Shark made another pass checking out the divers when he came to within 20’ of the divers.
Encounter 4:
Patrick Stephenson and Jan Olsen of Orange Beach and Foley were about 2 miles southeast of Perdido Pass
trolling toward the east for King & Spanish Mackerel. Looking behind
them to the west they saw a large shadow on the surface due south from
Caribe Resort. They stopped the boat and watched the large shadow
approach them. As it got closer, the duo could see that it was a
Whale Shark. He was cursing along at about 2 mph on top of the
water with his mouth open wide. He swam under the boat a couple of
times and beside the boat much of the time as the anglers continued
their trek east. "He swam so close to our boat that we could almost
reach out and touch him" said Patrick.
Gulf of Mexico Shark Expert: Dr. John Dindo, a marine biologist with the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, who
studies sharks in the Gulf of Mexico said, "All of the unusual shark and
whale sightings being reported lately don't really surprise me. We
know they are out there. While it is unusual that they are being
spotted so far north in the gulf, it is probably because of the
increased salinity levels that we are experiencing in the Gulf of Mexico
right now. As long as the conditions stay the same, and we don't
have any tropical events or heavy rains north of us, we'll probably
continue to hear about these encounters." Click here to
read the article and listen to Dr. Dindo's Shark Presentation on Tuesday
here in Orange Beach.
Photos below taken by Greg Oliver on a dive trip
aboard Mark Dowsey's boat the Last Cast.
Photos below were taken on August 5, 2009 by Capt. Chip Day on
Chipper's Clipper.
Swimming with a whale shark off the coast from Orange Beach
Multiple Encounters With Whale Sharks Near Orange Beach
