Did I ever expect to be here?
   The air is sharp today, the sunlight blinding.
   The whole world is dreamlike. Far too clear, far too real to be... I never thought words would be something I'd run out of.
   Jack sits up there on the hood between two of the aerials, thongs dangling. There's a mad bastard; he must be half blinded by the glare off the water. Still waving his radio mast and concentrating into his headset. He flashes that mad grin of his when he notices me watching him. Jack's on a high no one else can understand.
   Soft, cold kiss on my neck.
   Penny lets her hand slide across my shoulders and walks back to her lounge. Silk scarf tied around her waist. She smiles at me in the darkness behind her sunglasses. I smile back like some nervous teenager. She reads her book.
   The boat slaps quietly.
   I remember wishing for things like this. I remember one winter in Victoria when I was cold all the time and switching from job to job, and Penny and I had only just met each other in a seashore suburb with oil floating in the water. And God did I wish for something like this.
   "If I can get into marine biology in Townsville, will you run away with me?" Penny had said.
   You tend to say yes to things like that.
   Well, I do.
   "Ha!" Jack scampers to stand up like a dog on lino, dropping a thong and nearly his radio tracker.
   "Do you see one?" Penny stands up and grabs her yellow binoculars.
   Jack just giggles madly to himself and says "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus" a few times.
   It isn't my place to say anything.
   I pick up the masks and the snorkels that have been warming in the sun since we stopped the boat an hour ago, and walk to the side of the boat where Penny's watching.
   "Do you think we'll see one?" Her voice is soft and calm.
   I don't blurt out an instant response. I pause.
   "Yes," I say. My heart thumps once, aloud.
   Dark clouds move through the water. Visible for a moment, thick and solid, and then fading back into the deeper blue. Not just a few creatures swimming about, even I know that. Whole schools of tiny anchovies are feeding. Millions of them operating as one huge creature, darting and spiralling around an ocean rich with krill, confusing the microscopic creatures into a spiralling red ball to feed.
   Twenty-three days have passed since the night the coral spawned, and the Ningaloo Reef is rich with life.
   Penny lowers her binoculars and leans against the handrail. I watch her stare out over the deep blue waters of the Indian Ocean. Six weeks ago we were on the other edge of the continent looking the opposite direction. But always out to sea. The furthest view.
   She catches me staring and smiles.
   "I think I'll go for a swim," she says. "Do you want to come with me? I mean, we shouldn't waste today."
   "No, we shouldn't, you're right."
   A moment later I am in the water. Penny takes her snorkel from her mouth and kisses me with salty lips, smiles once, and dives quietly.
   "Jase! I've bloody got one!" Jack's excitement hits me unexpectedly. "Ha! Five days waiting you little rippa!"
   "Where, Jack?"
   "Somewhere out in the deep water. Shit, where's me stuff!" He slides off the hood too fast to be safe, but that's Jack. I hear him curse a bit looking for his camera case, but cant see him anymore.
   Penny surfaces a little distance away and blows water from her snorkel.
   "Pen -"
   Gone again.
   Black clouds pass nearby, and I slip quietly under the surface.
   Sound sucks away into the water. I can hear the bubbles pushing the sea around them as they struggle to the surface, and from the hull of the boat I can feel Jack thumping about, getting his gear ready.
   The anchor line is inviting, and I can see Penny's legs against the darkness some distance below me.
   Sunlight streams through and for a moment I watch the reflection of my hand distort on the undersurface of the water. I think I can make out the edge of the reef in the distance, but it's hard to tell.
   Little striped yellow fish swim past. Penny swims part of the way up to meet me and I can feel the pressure against my eyes. She points over to a huge fishball of anchovies and I sign to her about Jack's excitement.
   It's a relief to get to the surface again and adjust my mask properly. "Where?"
   "Out in the deep water somewhere, but it must be closer by now." I call up to the boat for Jack, but there is no reply.
   Penny smiles at me. "This is a good day," she says, then she laughs. "I can't talk."
   Neither can I, and I laugh - neither can Jack, and he's come out here for years now.
   The water breaks without warning.
   A huge white wide mouth sweeps up and swallows the sea fifty feet away, but it feels much closer. It surfaces slowly and over a long distance; a dorsal fin, the tip missing but a radio tag still visible lifts out of the water and then, God it must be at least ten feet later, an enormous tail fin rips the water apart with huge sweeps.
   Jack's head pops up a little over half way. He sees us near the boat and shakes his huge dripping camera in the air. Even with his mouthpiece in his mouth I can still hear him laughing. He's got it. He finally got the shot that's going to get him into National Geographic.
   Jack signals for us to wait where we are.
   Penny squeezes my hand and pulls me under the water.
   She thrums her fingers on my facemask and signs to listen. Yes, she's right, I can hear it now. Clicking. Almost croaking.

   Oh.

   God.

   The deep water suddenly sweeps away from beneath us and a huge polka-dot floor glides slowly forward. My heart thumps hard and I swim back out of the way.
   The whale shark sweeps through the krill-rich sea, wide mouth agape, filtering, feeding. It's huge gills flare and I just hang there in the water, unable to move, unable to think, just watching the pattern of spots glide down the ridges of it's enormous body and along a tail that I am unprepared for.
   I feel the shockwave as its tail fin, bigger than my whole body, sweeps too close to me and shocks me back into movement.
   Penny begins to swim along side it. It's like a spell. You have to. You can't resist but to be drawn like a magnet to something this huge. And all the time, in the back of your mind you can hear a voice asking you if this is really a fish.
   All the pictures on Penny's wall and all around the house could never have given me any idea.
   God this thing is huge!
   Jack's plume of bubbles becomes visible in the distance and I can see him with his camera, ready to take another shot. A dark blue cloud materialises out of the mist, and another whale shark glides within metres of him. Jack swims up and over the shark, still taking photos.
   It suddenly occurs to me to swim up for air.
   I break the surface and flick my mask off for a moment to get all the water out of my snorkel. We're a fair distance from the boat now. I'll swim back soon because I don't know the current. But not yet.
   Penny surfaces about fifteen feet away, laughing. "Thank you!" She yells to me. I just shake my head in disbelief. I don't deserve any of this. I don't deserve to swim with whale sharks. I know I never deserved to run away with Penny. She looks gorgeous.
   "Marry me!" I yell.
   "No!" she yells back, laughing.
   "God life is great!"
   Penny dives down again and I put my mask back over my eyes. Jack surfaces and nearly chokes on his mouthpiece with laughter. He shakes his camera triumphantly.
    "Fugging beautiful!"

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