Alright… alright…, I’ve been ever-eager to come see the whale-sharks ”butandings” for sometime now… my friends and family who have been to Donsol to swim with the whale-sharks has amazing stories about the experience. I’m embarrassed! growing up and coming from Bicol, I’ve never experienced swimming with the whale-sharks till last Holy Week.
So it was my turn to dive and swim with the whale-sharks. after waiting for 2 hours for our cue to get into a boat and start looking for some whale-sharks. I made sure I was ready. sunblock, swimsuit, goggles, fins, and my beach-hut-underwater-film-camera. The first time I jumped in that deep blue sea to swim after a fish as big as a boat was terrifying, I did not know what to expect in a fish that big and swimming in an open ocean 3,000 feet deep was already nerve-wrecking.
The first sighting was a baby whale-shark, the size of a regular car. I thought to myself it looked like a giant snake with its spotted skin gently swimming on the surface. It was awesome! It was enormous! I’ve never been in close contact of anything so big in the ocean. Excitement and amazement was chilling over my spine as I try to take a photo with my underwater camera. The fish was so big it couldn’t fit in my camera’s frame.
For 2 hours, we swam, we looked, I took pictures, and we followed whale-sharks. We were lucky to see as much as 8 whale-sharks of various sizes. The biggest one we encountered was about 15-20 meters, almost as big as our boat. We were all excited to swim with it! It was swimming and feeding. It was enormous, it looked like a a beefed-up shark with no teeth. It was amazing! At last! I have My own whale-shark experience already! I can tell everyone about the amazing butandings and that swimming with these gentle giants is an experience none like any other.
