The Monkey In Me: Whalesharks in Oslob

Lucky me up close and personal to da whaleshark

It was a long and tedious journey to get to the whalesharks, but when you are snorkelling and swimming up so close and personal to them, it is so worth the trouble. I am glad we managed to frolic with them for 3 glorious days and we were even rubbing shoulders with the gentle giants!!! Weather wise, we could not have asked for better weather conditions as the sun never stopped shining and we missed the tornado by a week or so!!!

We flew from KL to Cebu (4 hours), taxied to Cebu South Terminal (40 mins) and took the Cerebus coach to Bato Linatao (3.5hours) and finally stopped at the Tanawan Elementary School.

Aunty Venny runs this home stay gem!!!

We stayed at Aunty Venny's, a local married to an American directly across the road from the school.

Aunty Venny's guest house

School stop directly opposite home pix above

She bakes the best banana bread and its only about 5 minutes walk up to the whalesharks. On a good day, you can even spot the whalesharks swimming past her home from her backyard which is the sea!!! I guess you could say she has "beach front" (back in this case) location being prime real estate. Aunty Venny is generous and kind in opening her private home to cater for the "whalesharking tourists" seeking reasonably priced, clean and close to the action accommodation.

So hard to capture the real full size whaleshark

Feeding time!!! - yessss I could easily fit into its huge mouth

Oh I forgot to mention that OSLOB is where you will find the whalesharks:)

I could so do this everyday of my life if ever I am that lucky!!!

My memory is so bad nowadays and am glad I kept a travel journal which I am now able to refer to especially when it comes to nitty gritty details. There is not much to do in Oslob apart from the main attraction which is the whalesharks.

I have swam with whalesharks before in the Ningaloo Reef (Great Barrier Reef) of Australia, but this Oslob experience is totally different and is highly recommended if you love sea critters of the largest kind ever in the water. We were so lucky that each day there was more than 10 and up to 18 of them at any one time and they were huge and yet not scarry. Over the 3 days, some of them brushed against me, and it was a weird feeling as they felt like sandpaper!!!!

So lucky to see up to 18 at one time!!! but so difficult to capture
all of them in one shot!!!!

We have so many pixs and videos and hope to share some of them here with you if they can be loaded. The whalesharks are soooooo huge it was a challenge and quite difficult to capture the whole whaleshark on camera.