Over this time of about 5 years since I started diving, I have obviously had many amazing encounters and experiences through scuba, but nothing could have prepared me for what was about to happen.

It was January 2004, I think! I was teaching a class of one, a junior open water diver course. He was a cool kid, who had taken to the sport like a fish. We were heading out to a nearby dive site, no more than 500m from the shore, called Light House Reef, to conduct open water dive one. This would be his first experience diving in open water. To get to the site we had to pick our way through the reef, out of an "unmarked" boat channel at the time, and then head north along the wall for about 3 minutes.

Roatan is not well known for its whale shark encounters but Utila, a neighbouring island, is and from time to time they stray from their migratory paths and end up visiting us on Roatan. This just happened to be one of those times.

As we got out past the reef and started to head toward the site, all around the boat the water seemed to be boiling like a pan on a hot stove. This the boat captain, Marvin, quickly pointed out was Tuna. A giant bait ball that was being pushed to the surface by a whale shark. There were only four of us on the boat not including the captain, so we all grabbed our masks, fins and snorkels and jumped straight into the middle of it all. A stupid thing for me to do, I later learned!

 When the bubbles cleared I could see tuna flying at me, heading in all directions like silver missiles, none of them actually hitting me, to my surprise, as there was so many them. Then all of a sudden, there it was, a beautiful giant, with its mouth wide open and not 3m or ten feet in front of my face. Approximately 40ft in length and I wouldn’t like to guess how wide for fear of exaggerating.

I thought it was going to swallow me whole. I was so close to it and it was so big, how could it possibly move in time? Then it adjusted its heading, ever so slightly, and just glided over the top of me, missing me by millimeters. I stayed very still in the water, and it passed over me head to tail brushing me very gently or I was brushing it, not really sure which, it then dived down the wall with one graceful but very powerful kick of its tail, and it was gone. I looked up at the surface, a couple of meters or feet above me, to see my student and the other divers watching from the surface, they too had seen the whole thing and were shrieking with euphoria. What an experience for all of us, especially the kid on his first time in open water.

The presence of the whale shark lasted about another week, so most of the dive shops got to see this great beast too. Everyone was talking about it. I couldn’t stop thinking or talking about this amazing experience. Even Barry could see the excitement of it all and told me that I was lucky to have had an experience like that, as it was only the 2^nd time he had seen them this close to Roatan in 4 years of being there.

The sightings had got less and less over the week and the hysteria of it all had died down because most people had seen the whale shark by now, but Poseidon had one more little trick up his sleeve left for me.

We had just finished a fun dive with some regular customers. Kristy, the dive master for the shop, and me had both been diving with this group. We untied and started our journey back to shore when Kristy pointed out another Tuna boil. We sped out to see if it was another whale shark. Just as we got to the boiling water it all stopped. The noise of the boat must have made the Whale Shark dive, as they can be quite shy. Kristy and I stood at the side of the boat peering hopefully into the blue, but there was nothing, then all of sudden, right there next to the boat was a huge dark brown shape about 1.5 meters or 5 feet wide and about 1 meter or 3 feet in length. I knew that it wasn’t a Whale Shark, and from the shape of the silhouette, I knew it could only be one thing. I jumped straight in again with snorkel and mask and when the bubbles cleared, there she was in all her beauty, my favorite animal in the whole world a manta ray!

Kristy and I followed the ray on the surface for what seemed like forever, and then, directly below us, out of the blue came thousands of Tuna followed shortly by not one but two Whale Sharks side by side! They came right up to the surface either side of us; I have never felt anything like it. I looked around to my left - whale shark! Underneath me - Manta Ray! And to my right - Whale Shark! Unbelievable! What you would give to have a camera right then. However this glorious story does have a minor down side.