Whale Shark and Film Crew

Whale Shark and Film Crew, originally uploaded by belizediversity.

I have been diving Gladden for whale sharks this week courtesy of Roberto Fabbri at Kanantik (http://www.kanantik.com) and Martin Spragg from Second Nature Divers out of Sittee river (http://www.secondnaturedivers.com).

Roberto runs a fantastic operation with immaculate equipment, service and safety, just like his resort.

We were lucky enough to encounter a young whale shark for about 15 minutes. This shark would fixate on a diver and slowly swim toward the diver. It was hard trying to stay out of the way. Each diver in the group was trying to stay away from the shark rather than swimming toward the shark.

I had only a few 100 lbs of air left (the only one with air left on the dive), so decided to sink to see if the shark would follow. Sure enough it stayed at that distance from me in the shot to about 30 feet. You can see how hard I am working by the trail of bubbles, kicking as hard as I could to keep away.

Martin, on the surface, captured this great shot. My wife's comment? "You are no longer my favorite underwater photographer"!