Instructed to wake up at 5am to beat the tourist traffic, we were up and out the door at 5:10 without breakfast or coffee. We scouted the area the day before so we knew where to go already. Already waiting in line or the briefing area were roughly 200-250 people. Nearly every person had paid an additional amount of anywhere from 50-250 pesos to skip the line. We rejected these offers from our hotel and the tourists stands, preferring to take the wait-and-see approach.
Filipinos are relentless. Every ten seconds someone approached us asking if he want to buy a snorkel, a plastic waterproof case for the phone, water shoes, or to come join their group for a small additional fee. One saleswoman told us if we waited in line without going with a private group we wouldn’t go in the water until 10am. It was 5:30 at the time. We have learned quickly never to trust a Filipino salesperson...or a Vietnamese, Indonesian, Cambodian, Indian, or anyone else in the tourist industry. They will lie, exaggerate, or go to other great lengths to get tourists to open their wallets for any amount.
Nadine took the initiative and walked directly to the front of the line to ask what was the deal. Apparently we were waiting for the representative from the Ministry of Tourism to show up and sign off on something. There were about 20 Filipinos waiting with a list of 30 names each. Also some shady shit was happening at the front of the line, which turned out not to be a line at all. Anyway, Nadine had, had enough, random Filipinos were coming up to the side of this so called line and giving money to a lady. So, she took out the vata in her and went up to the lady just like a local and waved money in her face. Nadine gave her 2,000 pesos, which was the standard rate for two people to snorkel/swim with the whale sharks. Ben was summoned over and left the line, we walked over to the debriefing area and only then did the woman tell us it’s an additional 100 pesos per person. To this, Nadine went off on her. It’s one thing to ask us to pay more, it’s another to take our payment, have us leave the line, then tell us we must hand over more or go back to the end of the line. It resulted in the woman returning our 2,000 pesos, which worked out in our favor because we were now at the front of the entire line, saving us probably an hour or more wait time.
Initially the young lady at the counter refuses to accept Nadine’s plea to register us after seeing us essentially cut the line, but Nadine gave her an earful, waving her hands here and there in anger until the poor girl relented.
This is how we were the first people on board the boats who had not paid additional amounts to "go early."
Two contradictory statements sum up the experience of diving with these gentle giants:
1. As homo sapiens it was humbling to be up close and personal which a creature so much larger than us, especially in its natural habitat.
2. It's not natural and shouldn't be happening. Apparently the whale sharks were supposed to have been en route to Australia for their yearly migration in search of food and different climate, but because they are hand fed by the locals, they've abandoned their natural inclination to head south. For this reason, we had mixed feelings about the experience, before, during, and after the dive.
This is the second time we dived with sharks on this trip, the first being in South Africa with the great whites. The big different was that we were inside of a cage with the great whites, and for good reason. Whale sharks are peaceful and non-dangerous animals, so we swam freely amongst them.
The sharks are enormous! The sharks we saw were juveniles, and they were more than 20 feet long. Their mouths were five feet wide! The sharks were within feet of us, sometimes even closer. A couple times its tail would hit our legs, and once Ben reached out and touched one, despite being told not to. A lot of people were doing the same, including the guide who was with us. There were clear warnings that touching the sharks could result in a massive fine and six month jail time, but we are confident those signs are only to please the government and make a showing of caring about the animals. There were also signs that each group would have a local marine biologist for each boat who would enter the water with the passengers, but that lie was so outlandish that it's laughable.
The whole experience was scripted down to the minute. After waiting in long lines to purchase tickets, folks are lined up single file according to their priority number, given lifejackets and goggles and led to the boat. When all are aboard, the boat goes out probably 100 yards into the water, where maybe individually manned canoes are floating in small circles, feeding the sharks. Twenty boats filled with probably 15 tourists line up and have the passengers jump in the water, where the sharks are led back and forth to be admired. After thirty minutes on the dot, we hopped back on board and went back to shore. It was staged, impersonal, and pricey. But it is not often one gets to swim with a real life shark, so we sucked it up and did it. Ben loved the experience. Nadine was unimpressed.
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