Day 1

Great day out with the whalesharks today! It was a little windy, cold and overcast but we swam with 7 different whalesharks - the smallest about 3m long and the largest about 7m! Most swam at an easy pace to keep up with, but one steamed along and tired a few people out.

Our mission today was to try to photograph the whalesharks from the lefthand side to get the pattern of spot near behind the gill slits and around the pectoral fin.

Our team has now been split into 2 groups. I get to go out again tomorrow with 2 of the other teachers, and the others will be in the lab doing the photo_ID work. We get to do that on Sunday. The highlight was seeing 2 whalesharks at the same time, with one swimming over the top of another one!

I'll be able to give you more highlights tomorrow!

Day 2

Today we were split into 2 teams - Team 1 & Team 2. Team no 1 (my team) got to go whalesharking again today, to try to take photos for the Photo_Id library. Team 2 was in the lab uplodaing photos to see whether ther were any matches with sharks already sighted here or in other places.

Wow - what an awesome day! The weather was a lot better than yesterday - sunny all day and not so much wind. We went with another whaleshark operator today. First stop was to snorkel inside the reef - was amazing, although the water inside the reef was a lot colder than on the outside of the reef, wich felt really warm.

As we steamed to our first whaleshark, we heard from the pilot of the spotter plane that a humpback whale had been spotted. As we approached the spot - on the outside of the reef opposite Milyering Info Centre, we saw a massive whale breach (jump out of the water). It was an awesome sight but even more exciting, very early for the whales to travelling north to the breeding grounds near Broome. We were then told to get ready for our first whaleshark swim of the day. We managed to swim with a whaleshark, then the crew told us that that one engine of the boat had konked out. We were transferred to another boat to continue out whalesharking. There were lots of red jellyfish in patches, but we got to swim and photograph some fantastic sharks. One decided to turn on its side and another was definitiely feeding. Lots of other fish follow the whalesharks - remoras (sucker fish), really small golden trevally, cobia and fuseliers.

Tomorrow I am in the lab, learning about the Photo-ID database. I will be able to tell you all about it in my Day 3 highlights tomorrow. Enjoy school! Ms Bedford

Day 3

Today my team was in the lab learning how to manipulate the whaleshark photos to see whether the whaleshark photos taken by the Earthwatch teams and the whalshark tour operators had matches with whalesharks that had visited this region before. Most of the photos we manipulated today were of whalesharks that had been here before. It is very exciting to get a match with a whaleshark that is already in the database. One had not visited for a few years, so that was exciting! As we were in the lab today we had to cook dinner. Tomorrow my team is out snorkelling with the whalesharks again! What a hard life!

Day 4

Yesterday was another awesome day! Our last day out with those amazing whalesharks! The weather was fantastic and we were on a boat that had its own spotter plane, so we didn't have to share "our sharks" with any of the other whaleshark operators. There were lots of funny jellyfish-like critters, called ctenophores, in the water. You might want to search the Internet to find out about them and what they look like.

The whalesharks were doing funny things in the water yeaterday - swimming in circles and one nearly swam into me - I had to get out of the way in a hurry! We managed to get photographs of the whalesharks which we will use in the lab today to try to identify the whalesharks from their spots. A few of us had to swim a long way and quite fast after the last whaleshark we swam with. Goo exdercise!

A big thank you to the Year 8s for their e-mails! Great questions and I have replied to them all.

when I was snorkelling yesterday I saw a beautiful angelfish that I haven't seen before - it was a dwarf lemon peel angelfish.

Today the other group is going to tow the plankton net behind the boat to catch the plankton in the water. I will try to bring some to the school so you can all have a look at these little critters under the microscopes.