A Gulf charter captain who hitched the ride of his life on the back of a whale shark earlier this month did not break the law, despite the giant fish's status as a protected species.

Jamie Robert Bostwick posted a video of his visit with the enormous shark off Venice, Florida on his Facebook page June 6.   He said swimming with a whale shark had been the No. 1 thing on his "bucket list" of things to do before he died.

"It basically came right to us," Bostwick told local station WSTP, "It was just as curious about us as we were about him ... they're such a majestic animal," he said.

Video shows the 30-foot beauty swimming up to the boat, its tell tale blue-grey color with white spots clearly visible through the surface of the water.

Bostwick gets into the water and swims up to it, grabbing hold of its dorsel fin to catch the ride of a lifetime before his son jumps in and the shark swims away.

The World Wildlife Fund lists the sharks as a protected species with their numbers threatened by demand for their meat, fins and oil in some parts of the world.

Despite this, shark experts have said the move was not illegal, but emphasized they prefer the docile giants, the world's largest fish, to be left alone.

"They can't hurt you but we can hurt them with too much contact," Dr. Bob Hueter, director of the Center for Shark Research at Mote Marine Laboratory told WSTP.

The sharks have a layer of protective mucus on their skin and if it is disturbed, it can compromise their health in the longer term, according to Hueter.

It's just as well they are docile.  Whale sharks mouths are five feet wide, perfect for scooping up the plankton they feed on.

It appears the shark was not too scared by its encouter with human kind. Bostwick said it stayed with their boat for almost 20 minutes, allowing three people to swim with it.

"I tried to slide into the water, not jump in, that way it wouldn't scare the fish," Bostwick told CNN's Inside Edition. "H stayed right there next to the boat. I swam right up to him."