The whale sharks of Oslob

Ever since I heard about a place south of Cebu where you could swim with whale sharks, I knew it would be one of the destinations to check out once I lived here. It so happened that friends were visiting from Switzerland and they seemed up for the adventure. Since it is a relatively new place it was not yet in the guidebooks, I had to check the internet for some information. Apparently the fishermen in the small town of Oslob use a shrimp brine as bait when they go fishing. But aside from attracting the fish they would sell at the market, some much bigger creatures came too, lured by the salty treat: the butanding, or whale sharks, the largest fish known on earth. The fishermen eventually had to draw the giant sharks away in order to be able to fish. That is when the clients of nearby resorts started noticing them and were, not surprisingly, blow away by the sight. It didn’t take long for the fishermen to realize they could make more money showing the tourists the butanding then actually fishing. So now for about USD 25 (half price for locals) you can go and swim with these giant sea creatures and have an experience of a lifetime.

We were up at the crack of dawn and headed down to the spot about ten minutes from our little hotel in Oslob. A young woman briefed us for a few minutes not to touch the fish, to stay at about four meters away, not to use flash camera, among other simple guidelines. After paying our entrance fee, we were handed life jackets and led to a tiny boat. We were barely on the water when a huge dark shape crept up alongside… I nervously tried to put on my mask and my snorkel but somehow the snorkel wasn’t fitting right. We only had thirty minutes on the boat and I was anxious to get a closer look at the sharks. The rest of my group was already in the water and here I was struggling with my gear. 

Finally I got it on and jumped in. A fisherman on another boat was feeding a shark next to me. At about six or seven meters long (approximately twenty feet), these were adolescents; adults can reach up to twenty meters or sixty-five feet long. I was so close to the butanding I could just reach out and touch him. All of a sudden one of the guides said “Behind you, ma’am!” I turned around and suddenly there was another one, out of the blue (literally!).  I was surrounded by not one, not two, but three humungous beasts. The fishermen in their boats were feeding them and they were voraciously devouring the food, completely oblivious of me. 

I stuck close to the boat and looked for my friends who were clumped together a few meters away; they had jumped off the boat before me and as the boat moved away and the sharks followed the shrimp supply, my friends witnessed the scene and were dumbstruck and motionless for a few instants, while I was starting to panic, huddled near the boat, trying to dodge the whale sharks… Next thing we knew our time was up, and we had to say goodbye to Bubbles, George and their friends, a total of five whale sharks who let us watch them have their breakfast by the beach.

There is quite some controversy surrounding this activity on the net, with people saying it is bad to feed wild animals. As I do agree we don’t really know what the long term effect of this activity holds, after my experience with them, and the way the fishermen interact with them, I just want to go back and share this with my family.