Whale Shark Hunting! (Well, kinda)

We had one mission for our time in Tofo: to swim with the whale sharks!

Tofo is a popular tourist destination on the southern African circuit, with many backpackers and several dive/ocean safari companies taking RIBs full of tourists out to look for whale sharks. Researchers estimate that the worldwide whale shark population is approximately 1000, with over 300 of those found in the waters off the Mozambican coast.

Megan made it clear - we weren’t interested in dolphins, humpback whales or manta rays, we had come to Tofo for the sole purpose of swimming with whale sharks and we wouldn’t be leaving until we saw one of these gentle giants up close– so we were on the hunt. 

We negotiated up front that if we didn’t spot any the first day, we would go again the following day at half price.  Good thing as well – the first day we came up empty handed.  There were no smiles to be had coming back into shore.

The next day, however, the wind had died off completely and the water was almost glassy as we headed out.  Despite being told by an incoming boat that they had just seen two sharks, we spent the first hour again coming up empty.

As we were heading back in, we passed another boat going the opposite direction, almost directly along our track.  Megan looked back and, seeing that the other boat had stopped only a few hundred meters behind us and divers were jumping into the water, shouted “STOP THIS BOAT!  TURN AROUND!”  We had passed right over the same spot, again proving that it’s all about ‘right place, right time’ when it comes to finding wildlife!

The experience of swimming with a whale shark was truly special – the one we swam with was a juvenile male at ~7m – they grow up to 14m and 30 tonnes – but we were still amazed at its size.

Despite 6 other dive boats converging on this one shark, each dropping their cargo of tourists directly in its path, we were able to outswim most of the other tourists and keep up with the shark for almost 20 minutes.  Definitely a memorable experience.

We spent our last day in Tofo walking the beach, swimming and relaxing.  We were again amazed by how intensive the harvesting of the ocean is along the coast of Mozambique.  At low tide, swarms of locals were prying mussels from the rocks with machetes, while fisherman dragged their nets in the background.

Mozambique has proved to be a wonderful place to kick off our adventure – we have loved our three weeks here, which felt much longer in a good way!  While we especially enjoyed the more remote north, we wish we could have seen more of the country (particularly in-land) but are excited to head to Namibia for the next part of our trip.