Bitten by a whale shark

So anyway, I was at the gym doing my usually huffing and puffing thing and I tune into the nice TV they've got in front to distract people from the pain of physical activity and this show, "Thirty things to do in Australia before you die" comes on.

Item No. 3 (I think it was 3, I sort of lost count), was swimming with whale sharks off the coast of Axmouth, Western Australia. So of course the National Geographic channel watching, NG magazine reading NERD me goes...oh wow.

Because whale sharks are just so rare. People could look for them for days, months, weeks and not find them. They're quiet, stealthy creatures that feed on plankton and ghost through the oceans sucking up tiny organisms and being thoroughly unobtrusive. (And yes these facts are off the top of my heard, from the NG article I read at least 5 years ago.)

Axmouth is one of the few places on earth where they can be seen with any kind of regularity at all and apparently, they have to send out a spotter plane for hours ahead of your boat to find the shark so that you can swim alongside it and just be near one of the ocean's greatest creatures for 5 minutes.

I want to swim with the whale sharks and see them for myself and be near that kind of awesome vastness.

I've spent my whole life in urban Singapore lying on my couch (reading NG of course!) and dreaming of stuff like that and now that I realize one of those pipe dreams can really be done, I just can't wait.

Realistically, I know I won't be able to do it for quite a few years because any enterprise that requires a spotter plane is going to cost if not a bomb,then at least a grenade,but now that I know it can be done, I want to do it.

There is this crazy conversation going on in my head right now between City Me and Adventure Me.

City Me (screaming): " You can't do that! You must be crazy, it'll cost a bomb and you might get killed"

Adventure Me(dreamy tone):" I can see whale sharks...in the wild...AND its not that far from where I am now..."

City Me: " It's going to cost a bomb! You might as well buy ten LV bags with the money! What's wrong with you?Why not set some some designer bag or Tiffany jewellery as a target instead of some mad scheme!You don't even know how to scuba dive and the water will be freezing!!!"

Adventure Me: " Let's go see how much it costs then maybe I'll stay in Australia an extra year...... and go by myself even if my other city friends won't come with me......."


*sigh*