Swimming with Whale Sharks

One of the main reasons we went to Oslob in Cebu, Philippines is because we knew that is where we could scuba dive with Whale Sharks. The thought of that scared me at first (even though I badly wanted to do it) because I know how big Whale Sharks are... or can get. I have seen lots of pictures. They are HUGE. I also know they are called the gentle giants of the ocean... so I knew I would be ok. I have just never been scuba diving with anything that big before... what if it accidentally ran into me or opened it's mouth and swallowed me whole. Yes... I know they eat plankton. Your mind just gets carried away.

We found out as soon as we got to Oslob that we could do it and it wasn't that expensive. We were thrilled. Our only instruction before going on the dive was DON'T TOUCH THE WHALE SHARKS. Seriously... they didn't say scuba instructions as you normally would on a dive... just several different ways of telling us not to touch the sharks. I thought to myself... you don't have to tell me, I don't want to get THAT close to them. However... as soon as I saw them, that was all I wanted to do was get right next to it. And I did. I would just move out of the way as soon as they started coming toward me. It was awesome because when we first started our dive, we were the first scuba divers. There were tons of people snorkeling at the top with the Sharks... but Allison, Ian and I (and our dive master) were the only ones under the ocean with them. THAT was awesome. When we were almost done a TON of divers ended up coming and that was kind of annoying because there were always tons of people around each Whale Shark.

We really lucked out. They are huge beautiful animals. I just loved them. We found out these are the young ones... not even full grown! We had 8 or so of them swimming with us that morning. What an AMAZING experience. I am SO glad that we did this. I have really loved being scuba certified. It adds extra opportunities and fun to my travel adventures.