Whale Shark Swims Up to Boat

Occurred on May 28, 2023 / Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia

Info From Licensor: "We (Jasmine Porra and Travis Lowe) were camping on South Stradbroke Island, Gold Coast one weekend, and went out fishing about 10km off the coast, on Travis’s boat, early Sunday morning on the 28th May. We’d been out a few hours when Travis spotted something out by his fishing mark. We initially thought it was a great white, but shortly after it started heading towards our boat, and as it made its way closer and closer we realized it was a whale shark! Travis turned the engine off and we just let it do its thing. It was so inquisitive! It came right up to the boat multiple times, fully checking us out! At one point, it was right by the back of the boat opening its mouth right in front of us as if it was saying hi! We couldn’t believe it! We were in shock! The chances of spotting a whale shark are so slim. People travel to WA and pay lots of money to go on charters in hopes of finding one, and this guy appeared out of nowhere and came right to us! I’m an artist, and I was on the side of the boat taking photos of the ocean for my work right before this all happened, and when he came up, I couldn’t even focus on capturing shots of him, we just grabbed the phone to capture the memory for the first few minutes and then just took it all in! It circled the boat for about 20 to 25 minutes before taking off."