I spent two weeks in late August on the island of Koh Tao, which is located in the eastern Gulf of Thailand.

The weather was perfect. Every day, I’d head out on the boat to go scuba diving at various dive sites around the island. I’d been a qualified diver for several months prior, so no training was needed, and I signed up for the fun dives, where we would be taken on underwater tours by a guide called a dive master.

I was planning on diving virtually every day around the beautiful island of Koh Tao. In particular, I was hoping to see some big sea creatures such as the Whale Shark.

Now I should give some context. Some of you might hear the word “shark” and think of danger, or perhaps a film such as Jaws

A whale shark, while being huge at up to 14m long and 21 tonne, is nothing like the kinds of sharks that you might see on the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week. Instead, a whale shark has no teeth, and is a gentle, slow-moving, filter-feeding carpet shark, feeding only on plankton (not on humans!!)

What does a whale shark look like?