10th - 11th March 2012
We pulled up in a little town about 8km before Oslob, we asked for the whale sharks and the guys on the bus dropped us off at the right place, we had a great time trying to find a room near the beach, it was the weekend and everyone had travelled down to snorkel with the whale sharks. We eventually a place to stay with a family, I don't think they were an actual home-stay or hotel but they let us have the rooms in a stand alone building with a plywood sheet separating our bed with Kate's, a couple of fans and the use of a tiny bathroom outside. It wasn't the Ritz but we were relived that we didn't have to go into town to sleep. Getting food was the next big challenge, we were repeatedly told to go the 8km into town and get something there but we persevered and found a place selling pork on sticks – mini kebabs. They were marinated in soy sauce and vinegar and it was the tastiest and most tender meat I've ever tasted, we asked for rice and a lady who'd helped us find a place to sleep went back to her house and came out with a container of rice for us. Aside from the drunk boatman, who kept on trying to form sentences without much luck, it was a lovely meal.
We slept well and the next morning I woke the other guys up with my work out, grunting and panting a sweating like a real lady, we donned out swimming costumes and then walked down the road to pay and register for the whale shark boats. We had a little briefing, don't touch the sharks, keep your distance, be respectful to the boatmen etc. etc. and then our 30 minutes of fun began. We got into the little boat, having carefully wrapped my camera bag in a plastic bag and we were rowed out the 50 or so metres to where there was a whale shark swimming around eating tiny fish. We waited until our guy saw the shark and then we jumped in the water with our mask and snorkels to get a closer look.
It was amazing. The whale shark wasn't as big as I'd expected it to be and it was also a lot more beautiful. Kate and Djalma had both been looking forward to it while I was a little apprehensive, it was nice to see that it would have had great difficulty swallowing me without realising it.
One time while we were waiting for it to circle back round, we were all just bobbing in the water and it swam right behind me, almost on top of me, I caught it out the corner of my eye and nearly wet my pants (not exactly a big issue in the sea).
The skin was grey and speckled and looked like velvet even though it was close enough to touch several times, we kept our hands to ourselves and just watched.
It was amazing, at one point it came up to the side of the boat and was fed by one of the boatmen. We spent most of our time bobbing round in the water, Kate and Djalma did a spot of free diving but there wasn't much else to see except the shark, our boat man found us and I rather inelegantly hauled myself back into the boat taking most of the paint with me, Kate and Djalma did a much better job of it.
Back on dry land we ditched the life vests and had coffee and barbecued pork belly and chicken for breakfast, it tasted delicious and along with the beautiful view of the beach, the boats in the water and the palm trees (of course!) it confirmed a beautiful start to a brilliant day. We were done by 8am and headed back for showers before paying up and leaving. We walked about a kilometre to another jetty where we waited for a boat across to Sumilon Island.
No comments:
Post a Comment