Swiming with Whale Sharks

We are not the only ones to voyage to St Helena in January - our arrival coincides with the annual visitation of the largest fish in the Oceans and some brave sailors from the Oyster Rally went below the surface to check them out. 

They seem to stop here from January to March, and hang out off the coast - a bit like basking sharks they are kinda vegetarian (and somewhat bigger). Anyway rather than trying to sound knowledgeable about Whale Sharks, among the pics are both sides of the information sheet on the dive boat; for anyone interested in reading further above them. 

Our trip the day before yesterday took us back around the coast to some seamount, and our lumpy few hours of looking for them gave the chance to appreciate the volcanic miracle that is St. Helena. A quick glance at our ocean chart shows a straight line of islands off the coast of Africa, becoming seamounts along the ocean floor culminating with St Helena - the dot at the end of the exclamation mark!

Anyway all Ruth IIs crew (bar your author) braved the ocean with 3 giant fish armed just with GoPros for protection (or perhaps evidence). 

These pics require no captions - there may be other underwater perspectives eventually if I can get the content off the skippers camera. I should draw your attention to the two with Mary - clearly she picked up some bad habits from Little Bo Peep at Andy's Birthday!