{"id":35484,"date":"2024-06-10T19:18:06","date_gmt":"2024-06-10T11:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=35484"},"modified":"2026-03-10T22:40:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T14:40:21","slug":"cebu-2024-day-03-swimming-with-whale-sharks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2024\/06\/10\/cebu-2024-day-03-swimming-with-whale-sharks\/","title":{"rendered":"Cebu 2024 – Day 03 – Swimming with Whale Sharks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Day 03 and we finally get to one of the highlights of this 11-day trip to Cebu: swimming with whale sharks<\/strong>, an experience that’s new for all of us and likely not something we’d do again in the near future! Basically, we’re brought out to about 70 meters from the shore in groups, and the locals would feed whale sharks while we observe and swim alongside them.<\/p>\n

Comments!<\/p>\n

The activity seems to run for a considerable stretch of time in the morning at least, with groups departing and returning every 20 to 30 minutes. The actual whale observing and swimming segment is around 20 minutes. That might sound short, but trust me \u2014 it’s plenty of time for you to get great videos and photos.<\/p>\n

You’d need to come prepared with suitable camera gear. For most of us, that would be an action camera. I brought along the Olympus Tough TG-5 for stills too, but the quality of pictures I got was heavily dependent on lighting. Some turned out great, while others were really hard to post-process, especially when correcting white balance, tint, and focusing issues.<\/p>\n

There are a lot of rules visitors are required to follow, and yes, they are enforced. You are not permitted to have sunscreen on, and if you do, you need to rinse it off before getting on the boat. Visitors must also not touch the whale sharks and must keep a safe distance from them. We saw an ang mo guy deliberately swim toward one whale shark to touch it, and he got shouted at to back off by the super-observant wardens. That said, it’s really close quarters, and most of us at one point or another would unintentionally bump into one!<\/p>\n

The activity has been considered controversial by some animal conservationists, since the very act of humans feeding these wild creatures could be argued as nurturing behaviour that isn’t considered natural. That aside, I didn’t get the sense that the activity had been over-commercialised. True, it’s a really popular activity and a must-do when in Cebu, but we weren’t nickel-and-dimed for every single thing. The rules of the activity were also reiterated repeatedly, and there were a lot of dive wardens present to make sure that visitors behaved.<\/p>\n

All in all, the kids really enjoyed this activity, and it was indeed the first easy highlight of our trip \u2014 and it didn’t disappoint.<\/p>\n

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Kids said they were a little nervous swimming beside these whale sharks, but they got over their initial fears quickly!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Yummy!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Whale sharks can grow to lengths of more than 10 meters. The two that we observed must have been younglings; they were around 5 meters long.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And a video compilation!<\/p>\n