UAE | Environment
Huge whale shark spotted by divers
A huge whale shark was spotted by a group of divers on their dive at Martini Rock and Inchcape 2 in Khor Fakkan recently.
- Staff Report
- Published: 23:32 July 20, 2007
- Diver Louise Gleeson encountered the whale shark in Khor Fakkan. The divers say that such a sight is not common and that they feel blessed to have had the experience of meeting the world's largest fish.
- Image Credit: Kevin Gleeson/Gulf New Reader
Khor Fakkan: A huge whale shark was spotted by a group of divers on their dive at Martini Rock and Inchcape 2 in Khor Fakkan recently.
"We were at the safety stop after our first dive yesterday and there she was. We spent what seemed like 10 minutes with this amazing creature," said Kevin Gleeson, a hydrographic surveyor and dive enthusiast.
The diver claims that such a sighting is not common. "To put things in perspective, a friend of mine, a first class diver and one time instructor, has 6,000 dives to his credit. He is a marine biologist who has dived all over the world, but I understand that he is yet to dive or swim with a whale shark," say Gleeson, an expatriate from South Africa.
"Louise [Gleeson] actually touched the creature," he said. "We were at the right place at the right time. If the whale shark had passed two minutes earlier, we would have been too deep to notice, and two minutes later, we would have been in the boat," he said.
The encounter occurred at the depth of six metres, he said. "We had just completed the safety stop and were ready to roll. We had battery power and space on the memory card [of the camera]. Everything came together, as if by a controlled destiny. We were blessed," he said.
The sighting happened on a day Gleeson fears, Friday the 13. "I am a Tridecaphobic [fear of the number 13] as I have had some bad experiences on that day. But it's gone, now, I love Friday the 13s," he said.
The diver had told his friends from the Abu Dhabi Sub Aqua Club that they would encounter a whale shark that day. His diving buddies asked him later as to how he knew.
Gut feeling
"There was no scientific evidence, I just had a gut feeling," he said in a note to Gulf News.
The visibility in the water was 25 metres that day. The aftermath of the Cyclone Gonu was still evident, he said.
"There was damage to the soft coral due to the powerful swells whipped up by the cyclone. There are still loads of fish and we even saw some species of fish that we have not seen in this area before."
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