A Whaley Good Time - or Not

    

                        DIVING WITH WHALE SHARKS        

(Happy Birthday, Rachel Hodges Davison! I love "ya booty" to the moon and back.  Happy Birthday to you too, Amy!  And, I didn't post on Shelayne's big day!  I hope it was fabulous and I'll be home for the pageant.) 

Thursday, January 13

When in Djibouti -- I have learned that things change very quickly, and flexibility is a must.  Katherine and I will not be Whale Shark diving tomorrow as there has been some illness in her office, and it is all hands on deck at work this weekend. 

The excursion was made up of seven of us, six from her workplace.  So, because of the cancellations, all hands on deck means that I would be the only one left on deck for the trip.  Therefore, it was cancelled, and I will not have time to reschedule for next week. 

 Good news:  Katherine is going to Egypt in August for her next posting, and she has promised we will go diving then!  

I had written most of this blog to stay ahead  in my posts.  Below find what I will be doing in Egypt next year, but I will not be doing it in Djibouti tomorrow.  

There are two photos, one of my son, William, and one of his wife, Steph, on their whale shark dive in Belize.  Whale sharks are huge, gentle animals but a miss-timed tail swing from one can break your leg.   Ouch...although what a great story I'd have to tell!

I can hardly wait for my turn to swim with the whale sharks next year!                                                                                                                                                                                                

 Photo 118208887 © | Dreamstime.com 

William Hodges diving in Belize

Fast Facts:

• Whale shark season in Djibouti typically runs from November to February. 
• Whale sharks are technically fish, and are the largest in the sea.  At 18-32 feet long (5.5-10m), they are about the size of school bus, but are very gentle giants! 
• Like the Somali and Afar people in Djibouti, whale sharks are nomads, and wander the seas.

Steph Hodges diving in Belize

• They are filter feeders-so if they come at you with their mouth wide open, they are eating! (but won't eat you)
• Whale sharks in Djibouti are the youngest known of any site in the world, with some being as small as 6.5 feet (2m). 
• The only things whale sharks have in common with whales is their size and the way they feed.
• The spots on whale sharks' backs can be used to identify them like a fingerprint. 
• Whale sharks may live for over 100 years. 
• International Whale Shark Day is celebrated on August 30th to help raise awareness for the protection of this unique species.  

• Photo 112957601 / Whale Shark © Sergey Novikov | Dreamstime.com

  
  Photo 27818450 / Whale Shark © Diverstef | Dreamstime.com

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  Photo 45878189 / Whale Shark © Mikhail Dudarev | Dreamstime.com

  
  

  
  

  Excerpt from National Geographic:

  Whale shark's favorite meal is plankton. They scoop these tiny plants and animals up, along with any small fish that happen to be around, with their colossal gaping mouths while swimming close to the water's surface.

         Filter Feeding

  • The whale shark, like the world's second largest fish, the basking shark, is a filter feeder. In order to eat, the beast juts out its formidably sized jaws and passively filters everything in its path. The mechanism is theorized to be a technique called “cross-flow filtration,” similar to some bony fish and baleen whales.

  Characteristics

  • The whale shark's flattened head sports a blunt snout above its mouth with short barbels protruding from its nostrils. Its back and sides are gray to brown with white spots among pale vertical and horizontal stripes, and its belly is white. Its two dorsal fins are set rearward on its body, which ends in a large dual-lobbed caudal fin (or tail).

    Feel free to comment or send questions