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We’re 30 miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. No land in sight.
The ocean is more than 300 feet deep. The water is choppy but
clear blue. Creamer Shorey, a blond, sunburned 23-year-old,
has taken me out for the day, along with a couple from Canada,
another from Chile, and an American father and his two kids.
We’ve all traveled to Mexico, to the tiny island of Isla Mujeres,
for the chance to swim with whale sharks. Scanning the waters,
it looks as if we’ve found a group of about 20.
Whale sharks are the biggest fish in the world. They’ve been
known to reach more than 40 feet in length and can weigh as
much as 47,000 pounds, about equal to five elephants. Their
mouth can be 5 feet wide, with three rows of about 300 tiny
rasplike teeth. As filter feeders, they eat only plankton and the
occasional fish, so they’re not dangerous to humans. Still, it’s
easy to imagine a whale shark swallowing an entire person,
like Jonah in the Bible. “Even if you’re a good swimmer, I’d
advise you to wear a life jacket,” James Hancock, a marine
biologist and whale shark researcher, told me before my trip.
“I’ve witnessed plenty of burly men panic in the water when
they see something that big coming at them. The adrenaline
just kicks in. It’s natural.”
Wearing snorkeling gear and a wet suit, but no life jacket, I
roll backward off the side of the boat into the water. As soon as
the bubbles clear, I see a whale shark directly under me. Instead
of fear, I feel awe. The fish’s movements are slow but powerful.
Lateral ridges along its back give its body a muscular grace. Five
long vertical gills on each side flap open and closed, expelling
water. Its gray skin—about 4 inches thick—is patterned with
yellowish white lines and spots. Each whale shark has its own
spot pattern, like a fingerprint, which allows scientists such as
Hancock to recognize and keep tabs on them.
My whale shark begins descending, its elegant silhouette
growing smaller and smaller. For a moment it seems I’ll be
able to watch the enormous fish vanish into the dark blue
depths. Then it comes back to the surface about a foot away
from me and pauses, opening its mouth wide to feed. Each
of its eyes is only about the size of a silver dollar.
Information on the species is scarce. Sharks have been
on earth for roughly 420 million years, preceding dinosaurs
by about 200 million. Whale sharks, one of three kinds of
filter-feeding sharks, have been around for at least 60 million,
according to fossil records. Scientists estimate that they live
from 70 to 100 years. They’re known to journey thousands of
miles and can dive to depths of more than 4,200 feet, where
they survive near-zero temperatures. No one knows where
they mate, but scientists in 1995 confirmed that the giant
fish have live births.
In recent years, whale sharks have been sighted in tropical and temperate waters around the globe. In Qatar, they’ve
been found hanging out around offshore oil fields. In the
Philippines, a whale shark graces the 100-peso bill. Throughout
much of Asia, where people eat shark meat and fins, the fish
are sometimes called tofu sharks because of their rubbery
texture. In Kenya, legend has it that God was so thrilled when
he created the whale shark that he threw silver coins in the
air, which got stuck on the fish’s back—hence the spots.
Finding whale sharks in their natural habitat is always a
crapshoot, but waters near Mexico’s Yucatán, off the coast of
Cancún and Isla Mujeres, have some of the highest concentrations in the world. An aerial photograph from 2009 captured
more than 400 within an area of about 7 square miles. Most
come in July and August, when bonito spawn and plankton
blooms. Fishermen have known about the large aggregation for
decades, but it wasn’t until about 10 years ago that scientists,
then tourists, caught on.
With the fishing business in decline in the Gulf of Mexico
and Caribbean, many fishermen on Isla Mujeres have turned
to giving whale shark tours. They generally charge $125 per
person for a group tour. During high season, the guides fan
out across the ocean in motorboats each morning and radio
one another when they find some, a process than can take
as long as three hours. We spent almost two fruitless hours
searching before a call came in from another boat: “We’ve
found them—there are so many, the water looks like rice!”
Once we got to the whale sharks, there were already dozens
of boats on site. To minimize
stress for the fish, each guide
Opposite page, clockwise
permitted only two people in
from top left: Creamer Shorey;
downtown Isla Mujeres;
the water at a time.
Martin; back onshore
at a small beach
Our boat, run by Mundaca
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Who to book
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How to get there
Before you fly into Cancún International Airport, call your hotel and ask to have
someone pick you up and ferry you to Isla Mujeres. Round-trip travel
door-to-door costs $128 to $150 for two people.
The trip takes about 45 minutes.
Where to eat
Group tours from Mundaca Divers start at $125 a day;
mundacadiversislamujeres.com, +52 998 8770607. The best
guide is Isaac Martin; ask for him. A private tour from Kaiulani Creamer
Shorey, who recently split off from Mundaca Divers to run her own business, starts at
$1,250 a day; kaiulani.creamer-shorey@hotmail.com.
How to get around
Renting a golf cart for 24 hours costs $80.
It’s best to pay in cash. If you charge the cart to your
hotel bill, it will include a 16 percent tax.
El Varadero Seaside Grill, a tiny Cuban restaurant situated on Isla Mujeres’ lagoon, is hard
to find, but the seafood and mojitos are excellent. Across from the navy base, fisherman’s co-op
Where to stay
Cockteleria Justicia Social has superb seafood and a good view of the docks.
For brunch, go to Loncheria Alexia y Geovanny and order huevos motuleños, fried eggs
A 15-minute ride from downtown Isla Mujeres is the all-inclusive Zoëtry Villa Rolandi
served on crispy tortillas smothered with black beans, cheese, and salsa picante.
hotel, which has two gourmet restaurants, a private beach, and three pools. All 35 rooms
Grab a coffee at Café Mogagua, just down the street from Mundaca Divers.
have ocean views and are restocked daily with tequila, Champagne, and dulce de
leche candies. The presidential suite costs $1,324 a night. During whale shark
season in July and August, junior suites cost $530 to $662. To get to town,
you’ll need to rent a golf cart or take a cab for 70 pesos ($4.21) plus tip.
Divers, is captained by a former fisherman with chiseled Mayan
Located on Isla Mujeres’ famous Playa Norte, Ixchel Beach Hotel has
features. His full name is Alfredo Poot May, though everyone
100 rooms that run from $114 to $515 per night.
calls him Hermano. He skillfully steers around the whale
sharks, while Creamer Shorey keeps an eye on the snorkelers
in the water. We stay for about two hours, long after most of the
other boats have left. “There’s one shark, I swear she’s in love
with me,” Creamer Shorey tells us. “I call her Divot, because
she has a deep gash near her back fin. The other day she came
from behind and nearly ran me over.”
In addition to whale sharks, we see a large sea turtle and
flying fish. There are also several giant black-and-white manta
rays with wingspans of about 15 feet. They dart around, often
in packs, swimming fast with their alienlike mouth open.
One of them jumps out of the water and slams down on its
back. Even after I grow seasick from rocking in the waves
and vomit in the water, it’s hard to leave the open ocean and
go back to land.
The next day, Creamer Shorey picks me up at my hotel. I’m
staying outside the main tourist district at the Zoëtry Villa
Rolandi, a luxurious resort with a private beach, ocean views
from every room, and exquisite dining—particularly when it
comes to seafood. Creamer Shorey is wearing shoulder-length
earrings, shorts, and no shoes. “I don’t own any shoes, not
even flip-flops,” she explains. Born on Isla Mujeres to U.S.
and British expats, she grew up on the island. She spent much
of her time with animals, amassing dozens of pets, including four dogs, a parrot, and eight snakes, some of them boa
constrictors she’d caught in the wild. At 13 she moved with
her family to Abu Dhabi for high school, then to England,
where she completed a veterinary degree. She returned to
Isla Mujeres last spring. “You can’t keep me away,” she says.
It’s easy to see why. The “Island of Women” is a 20-minute
ferry ride from Cancún but isn’t overrun with frat parties.
Its northern beach is among the best in the world, and the
entire place has a cozy, local vibe. Creamer Shorey, like
almost everyone, gets around in a golf cart. “Some say it’s
called Island of Women because, when explorers got here,
all the able-bodied men were out fishing, so they found only
women,” she tells me as we putter along the coastline. “Also,
the island was covered in statues of pregnant women, an
homage to Ixchel, the Mayan goddess of fertility.” Her story
is cut short when we run over a fat garter snake. Creamer
Shorey gets out, stops, and hits it over the head with a rock
to put it out of its misery.
Like any island, Isla Mujeres has its share of castaways.
There’s Tarzan, who looks exactly like a Tarzan should, with
long hair, a perpetually bare chest, and a necklace with a
jaguar tooth pendant. According to Creamer Shorey, he did
motorcycle stunts in a Mexican circus before opening one of
Isla Mujeres’ first boat rental businesses. There’s also Ciro,
a one-legged Cuban dancer. “He drives around the island
in a white convertible with crutches sticking out the back,”
Creamer Shorey says. “A lot of people come and never leave,”
she adds. “My mom came for four days and never left. My
roommate came for a five-day layover, and she’s been here
now for five years.”
There are also plenty of fishermen, young and old, with
whale shark tales. Just recently, Creamer Shorey says, an
82-year-old retired fisherman told her how, 40 years ago, he’d
helped rescue a juvenile whale shark after it got tangled in
fishing nets. “He really should have stopped the story there,”
Creamer Shorey says. Instead, the fisherman admitted they’d
tied a long rope around the shark’s tail and dropped a big
anchor, so people could go see it every day as it swam around
in circles. “After two weeks, apparently some big boats scared
the shark, and it swam away with everything, including the
anchor,” she says. “That sort of thing would never happen now.”
Downtown, we go in search of Daniel Avila, a former
fisherman in his early 70s who once worked with Jacques
Cousteau. To reach Avila’s tiny apartment, we go into a
tourist knickknack shop on one of Isla Mujeres’ main roads
and pass through a door at the back covered by an old sheet.
“I’ve known about the whale sharks since I was a boy,” Avila
says, gesturing for us to sit down on his bed. “Once, one of
them came up under our boat and nearly knocked off the
motor.” He also remembers encountering whale sharks with
Cousteau. “He jumped in the water and swam with them,
wearing only a snorkel mask,” Avila says. “He kept saying,
‘How beautiful! Fantastic!’ ”
On my last day on Isla Mujeres, Creamer Shorey, Poot May,
and their colleague Isaac Martin, a professional diver and
fellow whale shark guide, take me on a private tour. It costs
$1,250, plus tip, but it’s worth it. Without others on board, I
can stay in the water with the whale sharks as long as I want.
This time, the ocean is calm, and there are at least 50 sharks
nearby. Most are about 25 to 35 feet long. Underwater, the
giants seem to emerge from nowhere, sometimes three at a
time. One of them lets me swim with it for about 15 minutes.
Up close, I can see minuscule, sandpapery bumps on its
pinkish gray skin. I even catch a glimpse inside its fleshy
white mouth and inside its gills, which are lined with white
sieves that look like an accordion.
With the sun shining bright above, ripples on the water’s
surface cast a lacelike pattern on the shark. When it briefly
sinks a few feet, I swim over to its other side. For just a
moment, I hover above its massive body. On its back, I can
see my tiny shadow.
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