The night is almost over when we motor our dinghy across Namatote Strait, drawn by the glinting fluorescent bulbs of a dozen fishing trimarans. The lights that attract the nightly catch lure us in too, and we call to fishermen as we draw alongside for ‘ikan besar?’, or big fish – and by that we mean whale sharks.
Moving from boat to boat, we race against the rising sun that heralds the moment when nets are hauled up and the whale sharks return to the depths. A fisherman waves frantically to us and we zip across to tie up alongside, donning fins and masks and slipping silently over the side. Through the clearest of waters, warm and calm, a whale shark circles languidly up from the seabed, its enormous mouth agape to scoop up the sea.
A second whale shark appears and we glide together, diving deeply and pushing every breath hold to linger in this mesmerising, fleeting dance.
Sizing yourself up against the planet’s largest fish is as memorable as it gets, and it’s experiences like this that bring sailors to Indonesia’s wild, West Papuan coast. From November through to April, whale sharks follow the plankton-rich currents funnelled into Triton Bay, where local fishermen broker incredible encounters for as little as £15.
Triton Bay is about as far east as you can go in Indonesia and still be on the sea. There’s one friendly resupply town (Kaimana) and a solitary dive resort (Triton Bay Divers), while a maze of towering karst outcrops hide the most breathtaking of
