Hi SD fans, and welcome back. While some divers profess a love of nudibranchs and other tiny
critters, for many divers, it’s the bigger, the better, and so here I showcase some of
the best big animal encounters on the planet. For those here for the first time, my name is
Mark, I am the editor-in-chief of the Scuba Diver media brand, and welcome to the Scuba Diver
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Basking sharks Every summer right off
our own British Isles’ westerly coastlines comes a creature of mega-sized proportions.
The second largest fish in the sea after the whaleshark is just as majestic
and harmless. Basking sharks come to our shores every summer when our waters warm up
and the plankton blooms. If you live in the south of England they can appear as early as May,
and if you’re up nearer the north of Scotland, you might have to wait as late as July.
At first they come in small groups but, at the peak, can be found in quite large congregations.
With their large broad dorsal and sweeping tail fins, and huge gaping mouths, when you first see
them underwater it’s the most-awesome experience - and all you need is your mask, fins and snorkel,
and an expert to take you to where they are. A lot of surface spotting by everyone onboard is
required for the first hour or two on a trip, but if you’re lucky you can spend loads of time in the
water with the sharks on a good day - and you’ll be happier if you’re in a fit condition! Basking
sharks were once hunted almost to extinction, but numbers seem to be recovering. In 2012, up to 900
were spotted on one day in an aerial survey of the northwest coast of Scotland. We are
discovering more and more every year about these majestic creatures. A project by Scottish Natural
Heritage to tag the species in Scottish waters has just been extended and has found the sharks
are travelling up to 1,900 miles in some cases before reaching the water off the west coast.
Whalesharks A ‘Top Big Animal Encounters’ list wouldn’t
be complete without the largest fish in the ocean: the whaleshark. Reaching up to lengths of 45 feet
and weights of 20 tonnes, these creatures truly are massive. But don’t be fooled - whalesharks
are some of the most-graceful, placid animals in the ocean and offer divers (or, more frequently,
snorkellers) the opportunity for some mesmerising close encounters. Though whalesharks do have teeth
(several thousand of them, in fact), they are tiny and not used for eating. These animals are filter
feeders, and enjoy a diet that predominantly consists of plankton, krill and small fish.
So where’s best for a whaleshark encounter? That’s an easy one: Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. While you
can enjoy encounters with these underwater behemoths in locations such as Indonesia,
the Maldives, the Philippines and the Red Sea, there is no beating Mexico, both in terms of
the opportunity to encounter the animals in the first place and the quality of those encounters.
It’s all down to migration patterns: each year huge numbers of these fish migrate north up
Mexico’s Caribbean coastline, congregating in vast numbers. While diving with these congregations is
not allowed, visitors are allowed to snorkel. Add to this the chance of seeing manta rays and
dolphins in among the throngs of sharks and it’s easy to see why this experience is rated as being
one of the best you can have under the waterline - and without even having a tank on your back!
Manta rays Of all the
great places to dive or snorkel with mantas, perhaps none is more spectacular than Baa Atoll,
in the northern Maldives Islands, during the monsoon months of June to October. There are
several noted manta locations, including Bathalaa and Hanifaru Bay, but it’s Hanifaru that qualifies
as one of the single most-unique manta - and whaleshark, by the way - sites ever discovered.
Hanifaru, a closely protected marine area allowing snorkelling encounters on only designated days
each season, is a small, sand-bottomed bay approximately 50ft deep, located just inside
the reef line of a steep oceanic wall. When the winds are right, an up-swell is created that
carries clouds of deep-water krill over the reef into a football-field sized portion of the bay.
With nowhere to go, the krill are packed into a thick, living soup - and the feed is on.
Mantas quickly appear, occasionally as many as 100 to 200 at a time, swooping and soaring, mouths
agape, through the swirling clouds of krill. On very special days, several whalesharks will
join the fray, standing vertically in the water, content to gulp in krill without the need to move.
For the snorkellers and freedivers who experience this rare phenomenon,
it is a life-experience never to be forgotten.
Dugongs Dugongs are one of the rarest sea-going mammals
in the world, yet in the south of Egypt, there are a couple of unassuming bays which offer you a much
better-than-average chance of encountering one of these gentle giants. Sometimes called a ‘sea cow’,
these behemoths can reach lengths in excess of 10 feet and weigh more than 500kg, yet they are
very docile, and you can carefully approach them quite closely for some superb photo opportunities.
The area around Abu Dabbab, near Marsa Alam, is a hotspot for dugong activity,
possibly thanks to the prolific seagrass growth smothering the bottom of the bays - a dugong’s
favourite food. Many dive centres run special dugong shore-diving day trips to the region,
such is the appeal of these ugly-but-cute creatures. Seeing them hoover their way
across the seabed like an underwater vacuum cleaner is a fantastic experience.
Humpback whales Each May, a migration of behemoths begins in
the seas of Antarctica. After nearly six months of gorging on krill in the cold waters, the region’s
humpback whales begin annual journeys northward. Some 2,000 of them swim to idyllic Tonga in the
South Pacific, a trek of nearly 5,000km, where they will spend from July through October mating,
giving birth, singing and socialising. In this season, the whales can be found virtually
anywhere in the archipelago’s warm, clear lagoons, but especially around the Ha’apai island group.
Visitors have perhaps the best opportunity of any place on the planet for near-constant sightings of
these majestic, huge creatures - adults reach 50 feet in length and weigh some 35,000kg. And, for
snorkellers and freedivers (scuba is not allowed), incredible and practically indescribable in-water
encounters can be virtually a daily occurrence. The whales, especially mothers being tolerant
of their calves’ inherent curiosity when meeting humans in the water, can be surprisingly calm and
accepting of close, extended interactions. And, if you are lucky enough to find yourself in the midst
of a mating competition or dominance display, with huge bulls jostling, breaching and tail-slapping,
you become but a tiny, awed presence, unnoticed among a dance of titans.
Grey seals The Farne Islands are a rugged
group of islands just off the Northumberland coastline and they are home to one of the
largest grey seal colonies in the world. With around 1,000 seal pups being born each autumn,
there are plenty of inquisitive young seals that are happy to approach and interact with the divers
and photographers that flock here to visit. The diving here is excellent, but the highlight is to
get intimately close to these wonderful, playful creatures. You can dive along rocky inlets,
covered in colourful corals, and then suddenly find yourself with four or five of these endearing
animals, playing and chasing each other, or they may be snoozing while wedged between two rocks.
Stay shallow, among the kelp or on a sandy seabed, and they might even come right
up to you, tugging on your fins, or even putting their mouths around your camera.
The best way to see them is not to seek them out or try to follow them.
Play it cool. They will come to you, and once they do they will stay with you,
giving you one of the most-privileged wildlife encounters the UK has to offer.
Nile crocodiles You spend your days travelling among
the Botswana Delta’s hundreds of tributaries until you spot what you are looking for - a 13-foot-long
Nile crocodile, basking in the sun. At your boat’s approach, it slides into the water,
disappearing from sight. Out at mid-stream, along with two guides, you back-roll simultaneously,
going straight to the bottom - there is no surface-time near silhouette-hunting crocs.
Slowing yourselves on the bottom in the 1-2 knot flow, you move through 55 degree Fahrenheit,
six to eight feet vis water to near the bank, where crocs will hide among the fallen trees and
irregular terrain. Then, there it is… an utterly fascinating, seemingly prehistoric creature,
huge on the bottom, its glare-white teeth shining oddly in the gloom.
On some dives there’s only a quick glimpse before it moves; on others,
you’ll get a photo or two before it’s gone, if you’ve seen one at all. And, occasionally,
the croc remains utterly still, allowing you image after image from less than a metre away.
Once a croc has gone - or had not been quickly found - it’s back out across the bottom to
mid-channel, where the boat moves above you. You remove your kit, ascend straight up together
under the ‘shadow’ of the boat, hand up your stuff and immediately pop in over the side.
Then you start the search for your next croc. Whew…
Leopard seal Leopard seals are a fierce predator
so named because of their spotted coats and large jaws. They look totally different to other seals,
with large, almost-reptilian heads and big, streamlined bodies that are capable of travelling
at over 25mph when in full hunting mode. They can weigh up to 450kg and measure over 13 feet long.
They eat fish, penguins and even other seals. Yet despite being at the top of their game when
it comes to hunting prey, they are also very inquisitive and will approach divers
quite closely to check them out, which can make for some extremely exciting encounters.
Bulked up with drysuits and other cold-water equipment, divers in Antarctic waters will
be dazzled by the acrobatic movements of this sleek killer, which has the unnerving
habit of gaping its toothy jaws up close and personal. Make sure you have your camera ready…
Great white sharks There is very little on earth - or under
the sea - that compares with being face-to-face with a 20-feet-long great white shark with no
cage bars between you. It’s a very different experience than cage-diving at the surface
with the sharks attracted by chum. The sharks are calm and unaggressive, acting like other top-end
predators in their own dominated worlds - curious, utterly unafraid but apparently quite interested
in a close-up view of a human. And. if you happen to be that lucky human, the thrill is sublime.
Off Guadalupe Island, Mexico, each year from July through November, more than 100 migrating great
whites make for frequent encounters, in calm, clear - like up to 130 feet and more - warm water.
While the surface-cage encounters are also thrilling, it’s the 20-30ft deep,
perched-on-top-of-the cage encounters that are the most special. Unaffected by food in the water,
a shark will come in slowly, turning its huge head to affix you with a black, fathomless eye
from only a few feet away. In such quiet moments, you can clearly see not only the sharks’ powerful
beauty, but also the extreme violence of their lives, in the bite marks from matings,
in the deep gouges and scratches from their immense, struggling elephant seal prey.
Goliath grouper Some 48 miles offshore from
the west coast of Florida lies the wreck of the Fantastico, a 200-foot Honduran freighter which
went down in 1993, in what has become known as ‘the Storm of the Century’. It was carrying
fertiliser from Miami to Tampa when it went down, taking seven of the crew of ten with it.
So what, yet another wreck, I hear you say. Well, it just so happens that this shipwreck,
which lies in two distinct sections, with a flattened midships between, provides a shelter
for one of the most-impressive fish in these waters - Goliath grouper. And not just one,
or two, we are talking triple digits… Goliath grouper are absolutely enormous,
easily weighing upwards of 500lb and measuring around seven feet long for the whoppers,
so coming face-to-face with one is a memorable experience. Multiple that by 100,
and you get some idea of what a dive on the Fantastico at the right time of year can be like.
It is actually quite intimidating to be surrounded by these beasts, especially when they resolutely
stand their ground when you approach, and emit an underwater ‘boom’ to warn you away.
The wreck itself is also very photogenic, with a large mast and crow’s nest, all covered in marine
growth, but in the brief time we had on it, the Goliaths demanded - and got - all our attention.
What are some of your best big animal encounters? Leave your comments below,
and if you have a question, fire away – if we can’t answer, maybe someone in our community will
be able to. Remember, if you enjoyed this video, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel,
and don’t forget you can grab a free digital magazine subscription in the description below.
As always, stay safe – and if you are going diving soon, enjoy!