Bohol Day 5: Whale Sharks!

This isn't my picture, I don't have an underwater camera, but this is what they looked like!

On our last day of vacation we did the one thing that I have been looking forward to and was terrified of since I first started to look into the Philippines. Whale Sharks! They are the biggest fish in the world, and completely gentle however their size is still something to be concerned about.

Before I left for the Philippines my sister and her husband gave a gift of the Lonely Plant Philippines to aid me on my travels. One of the fist sections of the book were the top 10 things to do while there. The picture that immediately caught my eye was that of people swimming with the whale sharks. People dwarfed by these massive creatures, and apparently it was perfectly safe... 

So as I've done my traveling slowly things from the top ten list have been crossed off the list, but the whale sharks still remained. So at 5am we set out on a bonca boat, leaving behind Bohol, heading to Oslob, Cebu to experience the whale sharks. Our boat was filled with two people from Germany, an older Irish man who had left his wife behind on Bohol for the day and a young couple from Singapore. It was a 2 hour ride to get there, it was rather peaceful as the sun began to rise and take full force on to the day. By the time we arrived at 7am to our destination the you could already tell that today was going to be hot.

We made our way to another smaller bonca where we paddle the grand 5 minutes down the beach to the main station where were given the rules, no touching, keep 4 meters between you and the whale shark, make sure to stay away from their tail and don't wear sunscreen. The other rules were all about safety, the sunscreen didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, especially considering what other pollution went into the ocean i doubted my SPF 50 would really do much damage to the whale sharks. So all though I didn't put any more sunscreen on, I didn't shower off the sunscreen I had already applied that morning.

We paid our fee, got our gear, then set out to see the whale sharks. They were close to shore and were attracted by the once man in a bonca throwing krill into the water. As we got out there you could see the large black shapes that would pass you under the water. Then a head would emerge. It had a moth like a giant cat fish, minus the whiskers. I was one of the fist ones from our boat to jump in, and as I turned behind me I saw a 20 foot long whale shark, pass beside me. Everywhere I looked I could see them I was in a middle of the group. They're friendly and do not attack humans, they're rather indifferent to us, but it is their size and getting hit with their tail that you have to be careful of. At this point I was clearly not following the 4 meter rule at this point. So I tried to move away from the pack, which I was clearly in the middle of to what I would consider safer water.

It was at this point that I noticed that the mouth piece to my snorkel was not working correctly, it was way to large for my mouth and therefore I kept getting in mouthfuls of salt water and krill, which makes it more salty and disgusting. So I swam back to the boat dodging whale sharks, and managed to swap out my gear for a better fitting one.

I began to explore breathing freely and enjoying the view, the largest whale shark the I saw was around forty feet, the smallest around twenty. They were all breath taking. I would swim around and see one watch it for a while, trying to stay the safe distance, but i feel like I was always around 2 meters away, despite my best efforts. Then i would look to my left and realize that there was another whale shark headed straight for me, mouth open looking for krill. As fast as I could I would swim away. But this became a constant problem given the number of whale sharks around us. I was entrance by them, following them through the water. I lost tract of time and another bonca boat driver had to get my attention, apparently it was time to go back. Everyone else was back in our boat and ready to go.  Feeling bad for making them wait, but also feeling cheated out of whale shark time I swam back our boat and head back to shore, where I finally got a chance to shower off and we started the next part of our journey, the bus ride to Cebu city.

We went onto the road and had to flag down the bus to Cebu. It was a holiday weekend and we were in the province so there was little room and no air conditioning. The bus took us along the coast through amazing scenery, stopping every now and then to pick up more people or drop some off. The seats were full and soon there was no standing room left. Still the vendors still managed to squeeze on trying to sell their pork rinds and green mango with shrimp paste. It took us three hours to travel 100 km and when we arrived at our destination Dad and Terri were both relived and frustrated. We grabbed a cab to the airport, first going through the MacDonald's drive through to get a snack before we flew back to Manila.

In Manila I left Dad and Terri behind so they could explore the city for a couple of days, and I then headed to bus terminal where I managed to just miss the last express bus to Subic and instead took the milk run to Olongapo city. I lucked out without having anyone sitting beside me, I was able to sleep for most of the 3 and half hours home. After a trike, then a taxi I managed to get home at 1 am where I checked my email and then went to bed knowing that the next day was going to be long, but the whale sharks were well worth it.