Encountering whalesharks on Koh Tao are one of the most magical and amazing things that can happen to you in the underwater world that we only get to visit. While they can get to be upwards of 13 meters in length even diving with the smaller ones makes a giant like myself (I’m 6’3″) feel like a kid again.
These are my top 5 encounters I’ve had while diving with Whalesharks on Koh Tao;
Number five; diving at Southwest Pinnacle on Koh Tao, Thailand can be one of the more common dive sites to find whale sharks. One problem you can encounter there though is that there is a secret pinn about a 8 min swim away from the site. Back in late 2017 many of us we lucky enough to see and dive with one while on the main pinnacle. Coming back to the boat and taking our equipment everyone is on cloud nine and buzzing around the boat. Then from a distance we see the dive master trainee teams surface markers all start to pop up from way off the dive site. The DMT’s had all gone to the secret pinnacle and had missed seeing the whale shark all together. Now to me this was hilarious and I was not alone in that thought and when they all swam up to the boat customers and staff alike all made sure they knew what they had missed. Upset and a tad jealous people started to fell bad for the razzing they had gotten. But as luck would have it about ten minutes after they had gotten back to the boat, out pops the shark spots and all right there on the surface of the water. Getting to snorkel with a whale shark is still a ridiculous experience but staying at the dive site for a second dive we were all, DMT’s included, able to dive with the it. DMT’s obviously stayed on the main pinnacle the second time around.
Number four; heading back to the boat with my surface marker up, my four fun divers and I had been dive the infamous Sail Rock in the gulf of Thailand. We had a great dive there, seeing all varieties of fish and in large schools or off on their own, either way a great dive. We are just starting our safety stop and ending the dive, I look to my left and saw just a tail swimming in the opposite direction but I recognized it immediately. Whale shark!!! This had been the first to spot it on the dive site. Looking around no one else had seen it but it was turning around, I forgot all the rules of under water and started knocking on my tank with my hand which does absolutely nothing underwater and waving to my customers, non of whom were looking at me at the time. Way to excited I calmed myself with a couple deep breaths and got their attention properly. We weren’t with it for long and it was a little guy, maybe 2 meters long about my length. It was my customers first one and they were ecstatic and my first spot so I was as well. It quickly went to from about 5 meters depth down past 20 and out our sight quicker then ive seen one move. Even the small ones can be epic.
Number three; this dive was not expected to be great, I never want to into a dive with a fart attitude but I knew that the visibility was not going to be that blue planet crystal clear that we all want. Going down the bouyline and Chumphon pinnacle I could see that past about 16 meters the visibility was not looking great. Chumphon pinnacle starts at about 12-14 meters depth depending on the tides, so we didn’t have much room to dive in the clear water. With thermo clines the temperature goes down a couple degrees, even though im a giant I still get cold. When out of the thermo cline pops a big blue spotted fish! He makes his way slowly out of the bad vis and in to the clear. It’s quite a sight to see out of the cold fart this magical creature swims in the warm blue ocean right in front of your eyes. In my video its been edited to more of a green background in to blue so you can better see the whale shark swimming up the pinnacle.
The runner up coming in at number two was a fun dive I did with a couple of friends of mine again at Sail Rock. Diving at Sail Rock has many perks, schools upon schools of fish, a secret pinnacle, some of the biggest giant groupers I have ever seen but above all that it has a swim through. Unlike most this one is up and down. Starting at about 6 meters depth it has two exits, one at 12 meters and the other at about 17. We decided to start our dive with a decent through the swim through. All of us formed up and went down through one at a time. Just my luck I was last, as was to be expected… There were four of us so I waited my turn and began my decent. As I was making my way through I could hear some commotion outside of the pinnacle and the ever so obnoxious yet exciting and familiar sound tank banging. Metal on metal repeatedly. I made my way to the deeper exit, as I exited in the deep blue I coming straight at me was the biggest mouth I have ever seen (besides my own of course). Swimming dead on straight for me was a whale shark. I had to stop moving all together, not just so we didn’t head butt each other or I swim right in to the belly of the beast but out of shock and pure excitement. I was frozen. The rest of the group saw her as well and as we continued to dive, circling the rock ascending ever so slowly each round she would come and visit for a bit and swim off again, little friendly visits from a big fat friendly fish.
The winner and best dive I have ever had with a Whale Shark was at Chumphon Pinnacle on Koh Tao, Thailand. Its Covid time so you know what that means, no one is traveling anymore and people are staying home unable to dive. Silver lining for me though is that I live on an island where we can still dive and don’t need to travel very far to do it. Because there aren’t as many backpackers wanting to learn to dive we don’t have as many dive boats going out everyday, so when you do get to a dive site you might be the only boat there for a dive. This can be especially nice for events like a whale shark approaching the dive site. So many times I have seen countless people crowding and flashing their cameras in the poor magnificent beasts face that it gets annoyed and swims away. I would too. Now on this day we jumped and already excited because we were at a popular dive site and no other boats had arrived yet. Jumping in descending down still no boats and pretty decent visibility. Couldn’t have been more than ten minutes and what should arrive but a whale shark, big and beautiful and spotty as ever. Looking around and I only saw people from our boat, a private showing! This fish liked us so much I decided to stay swimming with us for the entire dive. Coming up from the dive was difficult because no one wanted to leave our new friend. So we decided to stay and see if, who we had named Paula, the Whale Shark would come out and play for a second dive. She did not disappoint. Two dives back to back, private showing for both and Paula the Whale Shark hung out with us the whole time. It hasn’t gotten any better then that for me and its pretty tough to top something quite as amazing that.
The best time of year to dive with whalesharks on Koh Tao are between February and May, and between September and November. Find out more about your chance to dive with whalesharks on Koh Tao.
