Giants of Djibouti
'La bás' came the excited cry from the bow, a finger pointing to a large black fin about 15 metres away. Then a quick scramble while our own fins were donned, masks pulled over faces, snorkels in and over the side a few seconds later, hopefully in the path of an oncoming giant. As we dropped into the water from the high freeboard of the 'feloucca' – the fibreglass chase boat – there was a series of loud smacks, so anything in the nearby ocean certainly heard us before they saw us. After a few seconds, the bubbles cleared from our vision and out of the green-blue murk came a dark shadow. It was unmistakably shark-like but slow moving and seemingly oblivious to the frantic snorkellers that suddenly appeared like a school of giant pilot fish. Like all first time whaleshark snorkellers, we used up our energy far too quickly and after a minute of sprinting we started to peel off the chase. It was only then that my first encounter with a whaleshark sank in and I let out a 'yeehah!' of excitement.After a few more snorkels with the largest fish in the sea, we made our way back to the liveaboard, 'Djibouti Divers I'. There is something special about diving with a group of mostly French divers. Their enthusiasm for the sea and the sheer excitement and thrill of seeing our first whaleshark is infectious. Like a gaggle of school children – we all spoke about it at the same time, wide-eyed, speaking as much with the hands as the mouth. My reasonable grasp of holiday French was soon left behind but I thought that this is how it must have been on board the 'Calypso' when Captain Cousteau and his crew returned after a day's adventures. Our boat is a refurbished Red Sea liveaboard, out of Hurghada for the season and is a comfortable, functional base for diving, at 32m length, with twin Mann 620CV engines, 12 cabins and a nitrox compressor. It is the first purpose-built dive boat to operate in the quiet waters of Djibouti.‘Dji-where’ I hear you ask. This tiny country and city that share the same name are nestled on the horn of Africa, just where the Red Sea meets the Gulf of Aden. Not exactly on any tourist map, it has barely a thousand visitors a year. In truth it has little to attract visitors being the hottest place on earth in summer – 50 degrees in the shade. It is hardly surprising that almost every morsel of food has to be imported from neighbouring Ethiopia. In turn, Djibouti is the main port for this part of Africa, a precarious position for such a small country. This is why it is happy to host military bases for both the United States and France, who between them have over 5000 troops stationed here. During our few days cruising the Gulf of Tadjoura in pursuit of whalesharks we were aware of the strength of the military presence which was reassuring, given the neighbours: Marxist Eritrea and war-torn Sudan to the north; Somalia to the south and the pirate-ridden waters of Yemen a mere 20km east. There were almost daily passes of Mirage fighter jets and the sound of gunfire from a Foreign Legion training camp near Arta beach - our richest whaleshark spotting area.The daily routine was a little more intense than most liveaboards because a full schedule of dives, as well as two or three whaleshark searches, was planned for each day. First briefing was at 0645 with a dive before breakfast, a search and snorkel afterwards and a similar routine in the afternoon and a night dive in case you didn't have enough. The diving, though, was only average as tropical diving goes. The visibility is only 5-10m late in the year, when the plankton blooms attracts not just occasional whalesharks but also manta rays in great numbers. Adolescent whalesharks in particular congregate here from October to January and it is an unusual week when they would not be seen during this time. Though scarcely half their potential size, they are still mightily impressive at 5-6m long. Their streamlined bodies, polka dot appearance and slow energy efficient movement make them a joy to watch. The fact that they are plankton feeders – posing us no threat at all – makes them the most endearing shark species and is surely on every diver's wish list. As solitary, pelagic trans-ocean travelers however, encounters with divers are rare. Congregations, like this one in Djibouti are rarer still and are mostly due to breeding or, in this case, food. Feeding directly on plankton and small fishes is an energy efficient technique in the ocean, which has lead to gigantism in species like the whaleshark and manta ray. They need huge quantities of food to sustain them and must be able to cover large distances in tropical seas to find plankton hotspots. The largest possible size of whalesharks is a matter of some debate, some claiming that they can reach 20m length and 12 tonnes weight. A fish the size of a couple of mid-sized buses definitely gives them whale-like proportions, though the shark-finning industry has certainly prevented individuals reaching their full size in modern times. They are also among the longest-lived animals on earth, certainly living 100 years, some experts claiming that they can live to a ripe old 150 years. At such sizes, they have no natural predators except man, alas the most destructive one. In recent years, Taiwanese long-liners have targeted the whaleshark and reduced their numbers and maximum sizes through intensive fishing – a finding confirmed by Australian researchers in Ningaloo Reef, one of the world’s best-known whaleshark areas. The problem with protecting these citizens of the ocean is that borders are meaningless, so the protection of the Australians and many other nations are futile when the sharks continue their ocean migration.Such thoughts are far from your mind when you do encounter these gentle giants, however. When they are busy gulping down as much plankton soup as they can, it is possible to approach eye to eye as they stop completely and hang vertically at the surface to dine. And for a moment it becomes possible to join the golden pilot fish in the company of the docile giants of Djibouti.