Leviathan Vida Loca

- Bruce Dennill

Diving with whale sharks. That’s the sort of thing that only happens in those old-fashioned cinema ads where improbably beautiful people smile ceaselessly as their spotless yacht glides through a uniformly azure sea. Isn’t it?

Yes. Except if you’re staying on the west coast of Nosy Be, just off the north-west corner of Madagascar, in which case, for a reasonable fee, you can toddle down to the beach in front of the Vanila Hotel and step onto a boat that will ferry you out into the (literal) wild blue yonder between there and Russian Bay on the mainland (which is another island, but let’s not get pedantic).

As you motor further out, away from the reefs and the rocks, you get to the sort of water where the depth is most accurately described as ‘unknown’ and the profound indigo colour is literally emotionally beautiful.

Guide and host Matthieu, of the Les Baleines Randeau excursions outfit, explains the simple science involved in tracking the giant creatures we’re going to dive in alongside. Whale sharks eat plankton; plankton is eaten by small fish; and small fish are eaten by bonitos (medium-sized fish) – which leap out of the water in a helpfully attention-grabbing way – and terns, which dive into the waves. Theoretically, then, you look for a spot in the vast expanse stretching away on all sides where much leaping and diving is churning up the surface of the water and you aim the boat at that and hope that the whale shark has read the same manual. Cynics, titter if you must – the hit rate for sightings using this formula is over 90% …