A special dive trip to Chumpon Pinnacle yielded fantastic results as the first Whale Shark for a while was spotted in our waters. Divers were blessed with the site of a 4 metre whale shark cruising around the pinnacle.

Many divers had cameras with them and with or ongoing efforts to record the movements of these spectacular creatures all of them knew what locations of the fish to take their pictures for identification purposes (above the pectoral and beside the dorsal fin). The patterns on each fish are different, like fingerprints on people, allowing specific identification of separate individuals.

These photographs are uploaded to a worldwide database through Project Aware’s Whale Shark Project (www.whalesharkproject.org) which maintains its database in conjunction with the Shark Trust. A local database is also maintained through Marine Conservation Koh Tao. (www.marineconservationkohtao.com)

Thanks to Georgina Mills, Neil Lyas, Hsien Han Soh & Ai Ling Lee for the photographs supplied from their dive.