At was around 10h30 when my wife spotted a fin in the ocean. Behind the breakers we watched the fin, it looked like a seal basking in the sun.
As this visual, not quite identifiable yet, came closer and ventured into the breakers and the rocks, people started taking notice.
The whale shark washed closer for about an hour, and around 11h30 it beached, turned around and went out into the water again. We were watching for what seemed like half an hour as it again emerged out on the rocks left of the swimming bay.
The whale shark beached again and when we got over to the area it had landed, people were starting to gather.
“I went straight in not knowing what it was and being an avid diver felt blessed to see a whale shark. As it was flipped my son saw it was a female and showed me.”
The Whale Shark, at least 3m in length took a lot of energy and effort to move off the rocks and into the water.
“We spent around an hour moving it off the rocks into the bay took loads of shoving but as there was no visible damage to the fish I was happy”
The whale shark kept washing up in the shallow waters for a total of 6 or 7 times after it finally disappeared into the ocean. Interestingly, on the last release, just before the whale shark got it’s bearings in check, it swam in a figure of 8 a few times, as if to orientate and get a positional reading and then without hesitation, set it’s course and swam off.
The whole rescue took no more than 2 hours and ended with success.
Names of rescuers that we have : The Goetsch Family CR, Calista de Wilzem, Jed Venter and Mark from East London.