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Whale
Shark snorkel adventure
We guarantee that you will have the opportunity to swim or snorkel
with a whale shark |
| Whale
Shark information:
Phylum: Chordata
subphylum: vertebrata
Class: Chondrichthyes
Subclass: Elasmobranchii (sharks and rays)
Order: Selachii (sharks)
Suborder: Galeoidei (typical sharks)
Family: Rhincodontidae (whale shark)
Genus: Rhincodon
Species: typus
They are a member of the shark family and
as such have no "real" bones, but only cartilage.These fish are live bearers.
The eggs develop and hatch in the uterus. Several hundred babies are born live.
Length up to 40 or 50 feet.
Weight up to 20 tons.
Food- - They are plankton filter feeders.
They do not eat large fish or other large animals. They swim through the water
at about 2 to 3 knots constantly filtering plankton, fish eggs, shrimp and small
sardine-like fish from the water.
Do whale sharks have teeth?
You may read that they dont have teeth. They filter plankton
from the water using gill rakers. But they do in fact have teeth.
The teeth are extremely small, have moved to the inside of the sharks
mouth and probably dont have much of a practical function.
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Baja
Jones Adventures, the only tour operator anywhere in the world today
who offers a money
back guarantee that you
will experience an encounter with one or more whale sharks.
Every week someone contacts us and tells of an expensive and frustrating
trip to Roatan or to Belize, where they went to swim with whale sharks,
but never even saw one.
Click here for the latest whale shark trip photos
Join us for an exciting trip to experience
the wonder of swimming with the worlds largest shark.
Our whale shark trips are scheduled to two different locations in
Mexico this year.
The first location is in the Philippine
Islands in the bay of the small village of Donsol.
Keith rates Donsol as the #1 location anywhere in the world for
whale sharks. Join him for an exciting water oriented vacation
trip.
The second whale shark location
is Holbox
Island off the
coast of the Yucatan Peninsula near Cancun and Cozumel. Just
24 miles long and 1 1/2 miles wide this is a tropical island fantasy.
The island has terrific snorkeling, beautiful white sand beaches
and not a single car to pollute the ambience.
The third whale shark trip location
is to the Sea
of Cortez (Gulf
of California), Baja, Mexico. We will snorkel with whale sharks
in the warm water surrounded by rugged mountains and desert islands.
A remote and relatively undeveloped location. Yet, just a
quick 8 hour drive time from the border at San Diego.
There are only
a few locations in the world where Whale Sharks are known to
return reliably each year. We travel regularly to 3 of the
top 4 locations. The 4th location is in Australia, the Great
Barrier Reef. |

Click here
for information about our Philippine Islands
whale shark tour
Click
here for more info about
Holbox Island whale sharks
Click
here for more info about
Bahia de Los Angeles whale sharks
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Philippine schedule:
2008 trip dates
January 11 - 19 - - $1,995 P/P - - 9 day vacation tour
March 27 - April 2 - -$1,995 P/P - - 9 day vacation tour
May 7 - 15 - - $1,995 - - 9 day vacation tour
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Holbox
Island 2007
Contact us for day tours or for our one remaining scheduled tour July
28 to August 1, $1,495 per person
Sea of Cortez, Bahia de
Los Angeles,
Baja Peninsula, this trip can take place anytime in August or
early September. This year no scheduled tour, but we will do
a custom tour for a party of 4 or more. price is $1,695 per
person. |

 | Holbox
Island, near
Cozumel, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico
This trip is guaranteed
to be one you will never forget. Sunny white sand beaches,
tall palm trees swaying in the afternoon breeze, and wonderfully
colored marine life will be memories you carry home with you.
Each morning we'll leave the dock and go in search of our "target"
animal, the whale sharks.
If you are really interested
in this trip or in whale sharks, email
us and request our free
CD with video clips |
Donsol,
the Philippine Islands:
Keith rates this
trip as the best whale shark trip on our schedule. Great white
sand beaches. Snorkel with whale sharks just a short boat
ride from the dock. Friendly people and a new tourist industry
combine to make this a terrific vacation. After snorkeling
with the whale sharks we then move on to a great area for reef snorkeling
and diving. Scuba or snorkel you will love the area around
Boracay Beach.
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| Click
here to email us and to sign up for one of these exciting trips.
Ask for our FREE CD with video clips.. |
| With
the increased interest by tourists, some governments have begun regulating
access to or have drafted guidelines for correct observation. At the
Ningaloo Reef in Australia there is now a minimum 3 meter distance
that must be maintained by divers and snorkelers. In the Phillipines
no touching of the whale sharks is allowed. At Baja Jones we
believe that wildlife tourism is always preferable to hunting the
animal. There are certainly times
and cases where
tourism alters the behavior of wild animals. That by itself is not
necessarily harmful to the individual animals nor to the species.
The life cycle of Whale sharks is an unknown at this point in time.
Very little is known about them. We do know that they migrate, following
the seasons of the ocean as plankton, fish spawing and other food
sources increases in various areas of the world. There is some fear
that increased viewing pressure by tourists may cause the animals
to move to other locations. |
This
is a species that until recently was largely ignored by the scientific
community. Little research has been carried out. With the recent increase
in interaction between whale sharks and dive or snorkel tourists,
especially in Australia, scientists have begun to find that there
is grant money available to allow them to study the whale sharks in
greater detail. Whale sharks are considered a threatened species.
In some areas of the world they are protected from fishing, but in
many other locations they are still hunted. Whale shark meat is eaten
throughout Asia. The meat is the most expensive of the all the sharks.
Shark fins from a whale shark are said to fetch as much as $400 or
$500 in Taiwan. |
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