Bali has a exceptional skill to persuade foreigners that completely every thing they may presumably need exists someplace inside scooter distance of Canggu.
Browsing? Clearly.
Volcanoes? Yep.
Waterfalls? In every single place.
Yoga? You can by chance be a part of a yoga class whereas making an attempt to purchase espresso.
Whale sharks? No! There are precisely zero whale sharks hanging round Bali ready for vacationers to swim with them.
This minor organic inconvenience hasn’t stopped an countless stream of wannabe influencers visiting Bali from looking Google for “swim with whale sharks Bali” as if there’s a secret congregation of 12-meter-long fish hiding someplace behind Nusa Dua.
There isn’t.
If you wish to swim with whale sharks whereas visiting Bali, you’re going to have to go away Bali.
Happily, the answer isn’t notably sophisticated. A brief, comparatively low cost flight east lands you on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, the place the resorts disappear, the site visitors evaporates and the roads are shared with monkeys, chickens, goats, horses and various different livestock apparently working below the idea that site visitors legal guidelines are merely strategies.
The whole idea of tourism turns into significantly extra… agricultural.
DESTINATION: SUMBAWA WHALE SHARKS
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FIRST, YOU HAVE TO LEAVE BALI
A brief, comparatively low cost flight east lands you on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, a part of the identical gloriously rugged stretch of Indonesia that ultimately results in Labuan Bajo and Komodo National Park farther east. However whereas Labuan Bajo has exploded with tourism due to Komodo dragons, dive boats and people posing dramatically on Padar Island, Sumbawa nonetheless feels splendidly rural.
The distinction with Bali turns into apparent nearly instantly. Bali has spent many years perfecting the equipment of tourism with luxurious resorts, non-public villas, cocktail bars, seashore golf equipment, spas, eating places and sufficient avocado toast to maintain a number of medium-sized nations.
Sumbawa has goats. And chickens. And horses. And monkeys.
Ceaselessly standing in the course of the street.
Resorts disappear, site visitors evaporates and the roads turn into communal property shared by people and various livestock that seem to have collectively determined site visitors legal guidelines don’t apply to them.
And that’s precisely why this journey is price doing.
The whale sharks aren’t circling some floating platform twenty minutes out of your resort. They’re out in the course of Saleh Bay, an unlimited physique of water surrounded by mountains and rural fishing communities.
Getting there requires some dedication.
Not Everest dedication.
However significantly extra dedication than ordering lunch from Seize.
YOUR FIVE-STAR RESORT HAS LEFT THE CHAT
Most whale shark operators perceive that getting vacationers from Bali to the center of Saleh Bay requires some logistics, so journeys are generally packaged as multi-day adventures, normally beginning in Sumbawa and possibly Lombok.
Airport pickup, transportation throughout Sumbawa, lodging close to the boat docks, meals and the whale shark tour itself are normally bundled collectively.
The inns close to the docks are completely respectable contemplating you’re staying in rural Sumbawa moderately than Singapore.
The rooms are clear.
The beds work.
There’s normally air-con.
There’s even Wi-Fi able to streaming TikTok and Instagram Reels, so don’t fear, society hasn’t utterly collapsed… but.
Then you definately stroll into the lavatory and uncover the place fashionable civilization formally ends.
The bathe. There isn’t a scorching knob. There isn’t a chilly knob. There isn’t even the phantasm that someplace contained in the plumbing exists a water heater that merely hasn’t warmed up but.
There’s simply: ON. OFF.
ON produces chilly water.
OFF produces no water.
These are your decisions.
Select correctly.
NOTHING GOOD STARTS AT 4:00 IN THE MORNING
Your alarm goes off round 4:00 AM, someplace in that magical window between nonetheless drunk and why the hell am I awake?
Exterior, Sumbawa is totally darkish and quiet – even the chickens are nonetheless sleeping.
You climb right into a car and head towards the docks, the place any individual ultimately factors towards your transportation for the morning.
And there she is. A hand-crafted Indonesian picket boat. In full darkness. Getting ready to hold you many hours into an unlimited bay.
Anybody raised on American tv will instantly acknowledge the essential premise.
A 3-hour tour.
A 3-hour tour.
Gilligan didn’t see the issue both.
You climb aboard.
The engine sputters to life, and your little Indonesian S.S. Minnow disappears into the black waters of Saleh Bay.
There are not any metropolis lights.
No illuminated shoreline.
No recognizable landmarks.
Simply black water, black sky and the rhythmic thumping of an engine that immediately appears answerable for an alarming share of your continued existence.
So that you sit there bouncing throughout the bay whereas quietly hoping Indonesian boat upkeep requirements are barely extra rigorous than Indonesian scooter upkeep requirements.
SOMEWHERE BETWEEN GILLIGAN AND SUNRISE
For the following 90 minutes, it’s principally boat shenanigans. You bounce, the engine drones, and sometimes one other tiny mild seems someplace within the darkness.
Then the solar begins to rise over Saleh Bay, revealing mountains within the distance and dozens of monumental glowing fishing boats scattered throughout the water.
These aren’t little leisure boats with some man named Joko ingesting a Bintang. They’re working fishing platforms coated in huge banks of lights that illuminate the water all night time, attracting plankton and different marine life whereas the fishermen do their fishing issues.
Apparently no one advised the whale sharks the buffet wasn’t supposed for them.
THE WORLD’S LARGEST FISH DISCOVERS THE BREAKFAST BUFFET
Whale sharks are the biggest fish on Earth, with adults able to rising past 12 meters.
Regardless of wanting like one thing able to swallowing you and persevering with with its morning with out noticing, they’re filter feeders. Their food plan consists primarily of plankton, tiny fish and different small organisms drifting by the water – not people.
Which makes Saleh Bay’s fishing platforms extraordinarily fascinating.
The highly effective lights focus marine life across the boats in a single day, creating what is actually a floating breakfast buffet.
Generally whale sharks present up. Generally they don’t. There are not any cages. No aquarium partitions. No worker in a polo shirt asserting that the 7:15 whale shark expertise will start shortly.
These are wild animals shifting round a big bay.
So everybody waits.
Then the radio crackles.
The crew begins speaking.
One other boat responds.
Somebody factors throughout the water.
And immediately the stress-free dawn cruise turns into the Indonesian Whale Shark Grand Prix.
OH SHIT. SOMEBODY FOUND ONE.
The engine roars.
Your boat modifications course.
So does one other. And one other.
One thing has been noticed beside one of many fishing platforms. Inside minutes, tour boats start converging from seemingly each course.
One turns into three. Three turns into six. Six turns into a shit-load.
My Bahasa-to-English translation is a bit rusty, however I’m fairly positive the radio message interprets roughly to:
WHALE SHARK HERE. RELEASE THE TOURISTS.
Boats pull alongside the fishing platform whereas masks, snorkels and fins seem.
Folks begin stripping down.
GoPros emerge.
Telephones enter waterproof instances.
Everybody immediately develops the athletic urgency of an Olympic swimmer regardless of spending the earlier 90 minutes half asleep on a picket bench.
Then any individual provides the sign.
And dozens of fool vacationers soar into the ocean making an attempt to seize that one {photograph} for the ‘Gram.
Together with me.
Clearly.
I’m not flying from Bali to Sumbawa, sleeping in a resort the place the bathe has the technological sophistication of a backyard hose, waking up at 4:00 AM and crossing Saleh Bay aboard the Indonesian S.S. Minnow simply to take a seat politely on the boat.
In I’m going.
I’VE DONE THIS SHIT BEFORE
This wasn’t truly my first time swimming with the world’s largest fish.
I’d beforehand gone swimming with whale sharks in the Philippines, the place many of the sharks had been adolescents measuring round 4–5 meters lengthy. Apparently, when you’ve willingly jumped into the ocean with a fish the dimensions of a small bus, the logical subsequent step is to fly to a different nation and do the identical silly shit once more.
Solely this time, with larger fish.
You’d assume having executed this earlier than would make the entire expertise barely much less overwhelming.
It doesn’t.
There’s a substantial distinction between figuring out how large a whale shark is and watching an unlimited noticed silhouette immediately materialize beneath you.
The primary few seconds underwater are full chaos. Fins, bubbles, cameras and vacationers swimming in each conceivable course, all desperately making an attempt to determine the place the shark went.
Then everybody begins shifting towards the identical spot.
You look down.
Holy shit.
There it’s.
An enormous noticed physique slowly rising from the blue, shifting with nearly no seen effort whereas each human round it kicks like a drowning Labrador making an attempt to maintain up.
And that’s the ridiculous half. Even the adolescent whale sharks I’d encountered within the Philippines had been monumental. Seeing a bigger one right here in Sumbawa makes you notice simply how utterly insignificant you might be within the water.
The whale shark, in the meantime, couldn’t give much less of a shit.
It’s right here for breakfast.
We’re simply the idiots with GoPros.
THE WHALE SHARK DOES NOT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOUR INSTAGRAM
The shark circles close to the fishing platform whereas vacationers scatter round it making an attempt to fabricate the proper wildlife {photograph}.
You recognize the one.
The fantastically composed picture the place you’re calmly swimming beside a whale shark in pristine blue water, showing to have stumbled into a personal religious encounter with nature.
What the {photograph} doesn’t present are the handfuls of different vacationers instantly exterior the body ‘accidentially’ kicking the shit out of you making an attempt to take precisely the identical {photograph}.
Somebody swims by your shot.
One other particular person performs what can solely be described as an underwater collision with completely nothing.
Instagram is a powerful liar.
Ultimately, although, the preliminary chaos settles.
Folks unfold out.
Some climb again onto their boats.
And in the event you’re fortunate, you get a number of moments the place it’s simply you, open water and this monumental animal shifting effortlessly beneath you.
That’s when the entire ridiculous journey immediately is smart.
The flight.
The drive.
The chilly bathe.
The 4:00 AM alarm.
The picket boat.
Gilligan.
All of it.
THIS ISN’T DISNEY WORLD
There’s one thing essential to know about swimming with whale sharks in Sumbawa.
Wildlife doesn’t learn TripAdvisor.
The sharks don’t know you booked a tour.
They don’t care that you simply flew from Bali.
And so they positively don’t care that you simply purchased a water-proof housing to your cellphone particularly for this second.
Sightings rely upon fishing exercise, plankton concentrations, seasons and a group of variables fully exterior your management.
You would possibly see a number of sharks.
You would possibly see one.
You would possibly spend hours cruising Saleh Bay listening to radio silence.
That’s wildlife.
And albeit, that’s the way it needs to be.
THE FISHERMEN ARE THE REASON YOU’RE HERE
It’s straightforward to overlook that this whole expertise occurs alongside a working fishing business.
The fishing platforms aren’t vacationer props.
The fishermen aren’t actors.
They’re working.
Their lights entice marine life, which helps create the situations that carry whale sharks into the realm. The connection between fishing, tourism and wildlife right here is way extra sophisticated and fascinating than merely saying, “Look! Huge fish!”
Whale shark tourism has additionally introduced guests into rural communities that beforehand noticed comparatively few worldwide vacationers.
Which means guides.
Drivers.
Boat operators.
Guesthouses.
Eating places.
And cash flowing into communities far faraway from Bali’s tourism machine.
However extra vacationers additionally means extra accountability.
Give the sharks area.
Don’t contact them.
Don’t chase them.
Don’t block their path.
And don’t turn into the jackass making an attempt to journey one as a result of twelve seconds of TikTok fame apparently appeared price abandoning a number of million years of human evolution.
Take your images.
Benefit from the expertise.
Then get the hell out of the animal’s approach.
GILLIGAN EVENTUALLY HAS TO GO HOME
After sufficient swimming, photographing and common aquatic shenanigans, everybody climbs again aboard.
Moist.
Exhausted.
In all probability starting to sunburn.
Reminiscence playing cards significantly fuller.
The fishing platforms shrink behind you because the boat begins the lengthy journey again throughout Saleh Bay.
Besides now it’s daylight.
For the primary time, you may truly see the panorama you crossed a number of hours earlier.
Mountains encompass the bay. Small villages seem alongside the shoreline. Fishing boats transfer throughout the water.
And you start realizing precisely how far you’ve traveled.
The boat retains going. And going. And going. In some unspecified time in the future you begin fascinated about Gilligan once more.
SO, CAN YOU SWIM WITH WHALE SHARKS IN BALI?
No.
Let’s make this very simple for Google.
There are not any whale sharks round Bali providing dependable swimming encounters.
When you’re trying to find whale sharks in Bali, what you’re truly on the lookout for is a visit from Bali to Sumbawa, adopted by a journey into Saleh Bay.
Sure, it requires a flight.
Sure, you’ll in all probability spend a pair nights in rural lodging.
Sure, your bathe might possess precisely one technological function: water.
Sure, you’ll get up at an hour usually related to horrible life decisions.
Sure, you’ll spend hours bouncing throughout the ocean in a home made picket boat.
And sure, when the radio publicizes {that a} whale shark has appeared, each vacationer boat inside radio vary comes hauling ass throughout the bay like somebody yelled FREE BINTANG!”
Then you definately’ll put in your masks.
Leap into the water.
Look beneath you.
And watch one of many largest animals you’ve ever seen glide effortlessly by the blue.
I’ve now executed it within the Philippines and Indonesia.
It nonetheless doesn’t get previous.
Generally one of the best factor you are able to do in Bali is go away.
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