Our time was up in Cebu and our Filipino tour guide Boy, drove me and Holly two hours south to Oslob to go and swim with some Whale Sharks! Aimie went to meet Numra and Antheia while we went to Oslob and we all planned to meet up in Moalboal later that day. The whole reason I started looking into the Philippines was because of all the video’s I had seen of people swimming with the Whale Sharks here. My obsession with animals while travelling stemmed from seeing a wild Manta-ray in Tobago at my Dad’s wedding, so I was not about to miss the opportunity to swim with wild Whale Sharks! Don’t get me wrong, I am terrified of sharks and the sea, but the water is so clear here and the sharks are gentle giants, I wasn’t scared at all. Only when I felt something hit my foot and I would turn around and one would come out the blue, literally, and just swim straight passed me, not having a care in the world just simply swimming after the food a man was throwing from the boat.
I know the subject of the whale sharks in Oslob is very controversial as the fishermen are feeding them every morning for tourists to see them and supposedly they are not looking for food on their own in the wild anymore. This tourist attraction only started in 2011 from the Daily Mail picking up a picture and posting it online and I don’t agree with animal cruelty what so ever but my dad reminded me that I needed to make my mind up on my own if I could go through with participating in paying to swim with them. I have been to many Elephant sanctuary’s in Thailand and if I saw the Elephants distressed or mistreated then I didn’t carry on the activity, so I thought I had to see this place for my self rather than reading the blogs people have written on how bad this place was. When we got there we were put into boats of six, I don’t know how six of us fit because it was basically a kayak, but we did and me and Holly were the only English on our boat so naturally we were the only ones that actually got in the water to swim with them because if you didn’t know, Chinese people don’t do anything expect take up a seat in a life jacket with a selfie stick. It didn’t look like cruelty in my opinion so I was happy to enjoy this experience! Donsol is another location in the Philippines where apparently it is better and more humain way to swim with these monsters as they don’t feed them, but I didn’t have time to get to that island!
After the most incredible day of my life, me and Holly jumped back in the car and headed to Moalboal to meet the rest of the girls. We checked into this cute little hotel and went to get some lunch at Pleasure Principle and then to meet the girls back at the Hotel.
On the walk home me and Holly found this beautiful little green house which had pretty much no electricity just one light on the outside. Was beautifully placed along side this dirt road in the middle of bushes and dirt.
The long walk from the town to our hotel.
Even though it looks like there is nothing here, the people that live here are some of the friendliest people I have ever met!
The girls managed to meet some local guys who asked if we wanted to hire out a boat the next day at 6AM to go to 3 snorkelling spots. As there was 10 of us it worked out about £2 each for an amazing day of snorkelling in the clearest water with the most alive coral I’ve ever seen, turtles and Holly’s favourite, millions of sardines!
From 6am till 12 we were swimming and snorkelling before heading back to shore for a huge lunch with everyone. It was such a nice morning and after we ate we had to rush off to Kawasan Falls to do canyoneering. Video coming soon.
