What a week in the Seychelles!

I've just returned from spending a week in the Seychelles with my camera. We joined up with the Marine Conservation Society Seychelles and went on the search for whale sharks! We found them, and not just a few, 45 encounters in 4 afternoons!











It was an incredible experience and thanks to David Rowat and his team. They are constantly monitoring and tagging sharks to learn more about migratory behaviour and routes across the Indian Ocean. They are also trying to stop the Taiwanese from fishing the whale sharks on their way through Taiwanese waters. They get huge amounts of money for each whale sharks they catch, as whale shark is a 'fad food' in Taiwan. They hook them and tow these gentle giants to shore and cash in, it's terrible and must be stopped, there should be a global ban on whale shark fishing! If you want to learn more please visit this website http://www.mcss.sc/whale.htm, you can even adopt a whale shark to help support this research!



Now you're all asking how we found the sharks...



But even more importantly you need to use the extra special 'Whale Shark Call'!! Now I've been told that this call works on all kinds of marine life...



The rest of the time you just had to put your feet up and wait...



Or go looking yourself!



We did two boat dives every morning and then spent all afternoon with the whale sharks. The boat dives were in the north of Mahe and the whales sharks were congregating in the south, probably due to the plankton rich waters.



I did 8 boat dives on this trip, I had some encounters with big granite rocks covered in soft corals as well as batfish, lion fish, eagle rays, marble sting rays, snapper and very lonely lost ramora who wanted to find himself a new home...













And to finish this Seychelles post, a nice sunset from our hotel... what a great week!!