Swimming with Whale Sharks

I kid you not, that's what I've been doing!!! Swimming with whale sharks was never on my list of things to do merely because it's one of the unachievable things that will never happen.....right?? And yet here I am to tell you that I've swum with 5 whale sharks.

After speaking with Derreck he told us that there's this little fishing village in the middle of no where and there's absolutely nothing to do OTHER than go swimming with whale sharks. It was now 1 and a half days before I was due to fly back to Thailand. So I got on the phone to Reservations at Philippine Airlines and changed my flights. Best $25 I've ever spent.

Once I had made my way to Legazpi and then Donsol I went to bed that night actively dreaming of whale sharks and secretly thinking that surely this was not about to happen. The next morning I made my way over to the tourist centre and signed up for a day of whale shark swimming. There were 6 of us tourists, 2 spotters and the captain. What happens is, the spotter (yup, you guessed it) spots a whale shark. Us naive tourists can't even see what the hell he's actually spotting. Then the other spotter kits up in his snorkelling equipment and yells for the rest of us to do the same. It's actually all quite chaotic and frantic. Then he jumps in the water and you follow him and he yells again to look down. Then out of no where an 8 meter whale shark appears right in front of you and you just about shit yourself!!!

We spotted our first fish about half an hour in. I got pretty close to it but was still very intimidated and so didn't push the issue of trying to keep up with him. The second one we saw was slightly smaller but I got a little closer and my confidence increased. Then we didn't see a damn thing for over an hour. We were all beginning to think that the whale sharks had decided on this day to stop coming to Donsol and so resigned to the fact that it was all over. We were cruising around, not really talking and the spotters were looking increasingly frustrated and disappointed..................and then suddenly all hell broke loose!!!!!

The spotter started yelling to the captain that he'd found one. The boat swung around and the other spotter started kitting up, shouting the orders for us to follow suite.

"GET READY, LEFT SIDE, LEFT SIDE. NOT THE RIGHT SIDE. QUICKLY QUICKLY COME ON LET'S GO. LET'S GO....... NOW" (Real Jack Bower like)

Then once you're ready and about to go you do a final check to see the direction to swim in and you drop into the water. That's when it all becomes a whole other ball game. Everything goes quiet and you just see this massive animal gliding gracefully toward you. This time around I was in the front of the queue and manged to get right up to the whale shark's head. I swear to you this guy was about a meter and a half away from me. At one point he even looked up to check what the hell was going on up above him. They have the most amazing blue-grey, silver spotted backs and when you're that close it is something truly amazing to witness. This particular whale shark decided to hang around for a bit longer and so I swam next to him and sometimes directly above him for about 3 minutes. Then he just turned to one side, making a motion that a Cessna might as it banks to the left for a dive down to the ground, and it disappeared into the depths.

That was the 3rd one. No sooner had we got back on board the boat that more yelling began and it was time to kit up again. The 4th whale shark we saw was by far the best one. He hung around for a while, then dipped a couple meters deeper but then came back up again. Having my new found knowledge on board that I could dive to 18 meters I decided to go low and get a glimpse of his belly. Unfortunately I was a bit tired from keeping up with the spotted monster and so couldn't get too deep. Actually I think the reason is that I've drunk beer for about 54 days out of 61 and my gut was unfortunately giving me a bit of drag so that's why I only got 4 meters down. But 4 meters was enough and I did catch a glimpse of his impressive shiny white belly. The 5th one came along shortly afterwards and then it got quite again so we headed back to shore.

Man o man what a day. All I can say is that every single one of you needs to come to the Philippines and go swim with these largest fish of the sea. It was an awesome experience and I wish I could have done it again. As I mentioned before there's bugger all else to do in Donsol once you've done the whale shark thing so instead of paying 800 potatoes (pesos) a night in Donsol I made the journey back to Legaspi (for 2 nights) and then flew out yesterday back to Manila. I was paying 250 pesos a night in Legaspi but you get what you pay for. The room was clearly designed for midget hobbits and the bathroom was so small that when you're sitting on the bog you can actually rest your head comfortably on the wall in front of you. This also means, unfortunately, that you can't take your book into the bog because there's no room to read it, although I imagine if you had to position yourself sideways then it might be possible.

For more info on the whale shark thing and some epic photos (not of me unfortunately), click on the link below.

http://www.sergeyphoto.com/underwater/donsol.html

Now I'm back in Bangkok and about to embark on a nightmare of a journey. After going to bed at 2 in the morning and then waking up at 7 this morning to get to the airport I've been told that the only way back to Ko Tao is by 11 hour bus ride and then a further 2 and half hour ferry. It's a 4 day weekend over here at the moment and so sleeper trains are all fully booked. Once I get to Ko Tao I'm going to sign up for my Open Water 1 qualification and do some diving. Then just a few more days chilling on the beach and then it's all over. I can't believe how quickly it's all gone.
See you all soon.

Baj