Whale Sharks in Bahia de los Angeles

On our recent trip to BOLA in late July. We were watching two whale sharks in front of Guillermo's, from our front porch, when we noticed a panga racing around near shore. It was like slow motion as he headed straight for one of the sharks. The sun was setting and shining directly into the pangero's eyes and he never saw the shark. He hit it with the motor. The motor must not have been locked down because flew up. We launched our kayaks and headed toward the sharks. When we arrived both sharks were still there swimming slowly feeding, then two young men from Ocean Discovery Institute arrived with snorkel gear and dove in to inspect for any injury to the sharks. After a pretty complete inspection they could not see any damage. We stayed with them until it started to get dark and they seemed fine.

Dang it Bob! I kept watching those pangas in front of my house at Gecko while I was there, the Whale Sharks were coming in (early I guess) I'd watch the sharks and then a panga would come roaring by as I held my breath Made me want to take a page from the Sea Sheapards and find myself a prop fowler! The panaleros know darn well that the sharks are at the south bay when the water temp. gets to 74 degrees! Yes I know, it their country, but, being that Whale Sharks are one of the main tourist attractions in Bahia, you would think that they would do more to protect their own livelyhood. Sheesh!

Canuto y Canito

I liked it better when he was with Hanna Barbara:

Yes, the whale sharks will still be there. I believe that they stick around sometimes till November. I was lucky enough to find two on my last day and cruised around with them on my stand up paddle board.

The whale sharks can be hard to see if the water is choppy or if they are below the surface of the water. They don't always skim the surface or show fins like the three in this photo.

This summer it seemed that the whale sharks were staying about a foot under the water. The whales in these photos were like that. The water was clear yet we still almost didn't see them until we were right on top of them.





We hit one once a couple of years ago, going only 5 mph. It was below the surface - we never saw it. Our motor was in the locked position - not good- as it almost flipped our panga over sideways. It sent me flying into the front and Dern almost lost his grip on the motor.
We learned to unlock our motor after that.

This whale shark obviously had a run in with a propeller (not ours)



We saw one whale shark this summer with it's entire dorsal fin shredded and it's not so uncommon to see nicks out of them and the tail.

I watched the tourist pangas go by my place all summer heading for Rincon to see the whales. For the most part they were observing the 5mph buoys.

P<*)))><