What a season!
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010 
Whalesharks. We cannot believe its already April. We have been so busy, we only just managed to have our Christmas Party on 26th March to celebrate the 200th whaleshark sighting for this season. Compared to the mere 24 sightings in the previous season - that’s certainly something to blog about!!
On the Surface. Despite our whaleshark protection policy of “Don’t Chase. Don’t Touch” there were certainly a lot of close encounters with these friendly giants. Many of the sharks follow the snorkellers, swimming directly towards them and even bump into them, if the snorkeller’s efforts to back peddle fail.
On Scuba. While some whalesharks are content just to have a casual look as they cruise on by, some lucky divers had 50 minutes of non-stop whaleshark action as the shark swam around and around them in the diver’s bubbles. While another group scored 4 different whalesharks in one 50 minute dive.
Weather. It has been a very strange season weather wise, with calm water and sunny days throughout February and rain and swell throughout March. The water temperature has been up 2 degrees over average for the last 4 weeks, at 31 degrees C, causing some extensive coral bleaching in our shallow reef waters. We are hoping for a cool change soon to give the corals a chance to recover.
Season Highlights (Its not all about whalesharks!)
Swimming with a rare school of dolphin fish;Getting up close and personal with sailfish; 9 devil wrays dancing with divers for 40 mins, with a whaleshark to boot; Numerous mantas, hammerheads, silkys and other shark action; JCU fish research team return and find 5 new fish records, including 1 new species ( 1 wrasse, 2 unicornfish, 1 parrotfish and 1 butterfly fish).
Thank you to all our visiting and local divers and snorkelers for a fun-filled season.
Stay tuned to this blog to hear about all the thrills of the island’s inaugural hosting of the Underwater Festival in April.