my fascination with whale shark started at a pretty early age I remember having
a book when I was younger that depicted the diagram of a whale shark and a kid
snorkeling next to it oh and also a school bus to show the incredible size
of the animal as I read about the fish being a gentle giant can harmless to
humans it instilled in my mind always a desire to see the animal with my own
eyes ladies and gentlemen of the Internet this video is a passion project
of mine and I hope that you take what you've seen in this video to heart the
objective is not the steer your opinion about whale shark tourism in the
Philippines but it is to provide you with information working alongside the
amazing brands that helped put this video together we want to document the
journey to see this magnificent creature in the wild as this is my first time
ever creating a video like this I hope you all walk away with a newfound
appreciation and a sense of education for the blue ton ding ladies and
gentlemen welcome to Don Saul here in the Bicol region of the Philippines
today we are going swimming with whale sharks here in dun soul you have the
ability to pay to rent out a boat to go look for whale sharks it's about a
three-hour tour so that's what we're about to do so in a minute we're gonna
show you guys the process of boarding that boat and we're gonna head out and
actually go see the whale sharks and because we're fishing for a wild whale
sharks there is a chance that we're gonna walk out on this without seeing
them that's kind of the beauty behind this there's no guaranteed sighting so
ladies and gentlemen we are back with the pals Moshe
I'm Moshe and Borka hi Borka this has been a big passion project for me and
Borka to put this video together so we're going to head off to the kind of
dive center that they lead on these tours and we'll be checking in and
beginning our tour now hopefully we'll getting off of the boat with just the
three of us because that's what we kind of want very private organizing
hello good morning so this is kind of the center where you have to check-in
we've been given a pen and paper to write down our information for the booth
10 being torn that's actually how you say well shark in Filipino and we're
just filling out all our information right now alright so we just finished
renting our buffs so now you also have to watch an informational video on the
whale shark experience before you go so the informational video just ended I
just wanted to read you guys off some notes that I took about the video some
of the rules they have here is that they only have 30 boats maximum in the water
as well there's only six people allowed on a boat to avoid congestion of people
in the water so it's very like sought after and looked after that there's not
a lot of people in the water getting too close the rules are we have to keep a
distance of 4 meters from the whale sharks at all the time we can't touch or
ride them we can't block their path there's only five minutes allowed per
interaction with a whale shark they honed on the fact that it's a privilege
and responsibility and they are helping out the local communities here by doing
it here the respectful and ethical way so they're now going ahead in the water
and hopefully see some well sharks okay so we're just getting some fins geared
up right now so we can get prepared for the water this is our guide hi Joseph
how are you as I've just been assigned our guide it is important to note from
the report so we've been hearing around the area and nobody's seen them in the
last few days because it's been rainy weather but this is the first sunny day
since we arrived here we've actually been in the Bicol Region for quite a few
days now we're just being led out to the beach right now seems like there's a
pretty big group in front of us we're gonna try to get in the water before
should have mentioned the time we're doing this pretty early in the morning
it's like 8 a.m. you start the whole process of the registration know that at
like 7:30 we're heading off right now to the boats this will be the beginning of
hopefully an epic journey this is our bunka awesome good morning
so welcome to the Philippines an archipelago paradise full of incredible
flora and fauna across the over 7,000 islands you can find a countless number
of really amazing land and sea dwelling animals from monitor lizards to
saltwater crocs and the beautiful dolphins and sea turtles there is one
animal that has captivated the heart of many travelers and locals of the
Philippines this animal is the whale shark also known in Filipino as the
Boonton B whale sharks are an absolutely marvelous ocean creature the largest in
fact yep you heard me right the whale shark is the largest fish in our oceans
and seas there's no wonder why people rush to have an interaction with them
they are truly mind-blowing whale sharks can be found in many
locations across the globe anywhere from Mexico to Indonesia Australia Africa and
even parts of the Middle East but one place in the world where whale sharks
have become a staple for any visit to the country is the Philippines to add
further context in this video we thought it would be smart to show you one the
scale of this country to the different locations where whale sharks are found 3
the options that you have when it comes to interactions and for the cost of the
different locations so let's begin shall
we currently there are three locations in
the Philippines with frequent whale shark sightings both in season and out
to other locations experienced infrequent but growing numbers of whale
sharks passing through those areas giving us five potential whale shark
sighting locations it is important to note that whale shark migration patterns
are not fully understood by the scientific community and it is safe to
assume that these animals travel vast distances through the oceans as they've
been seen as far north as Taiwan and as far south as Indonesia the first of the
locations we're going to talk about is Honda Bay near the city of Puerto
Princesa on the island of this season in this location last from
April to November and the tour takes you searching for whale sharks in the waters
of Honda Bay this adventure will run you about 1,800 Filipino pesos or $35 us
information on the specific tour is hard to find online and I actually haven't
heard about any of this until I started doing research for this video
moving on our second location is the island of Bohol from what I've read
there aren't any formal tour operators there and sightings are very rare but
they do happen the locations where I've heard about the most sightings are by
the town of unda okay now that those two are out of the way let's talk about
three locations where whale sharks are very prevalent Southern Leyte ah slob in
Cebu and dun soul in the Bicol Region Southern Leyte seems like the ultimate
experience when it comes to seeing a wheelchair visitors are very scarce and
the location is being used as a serious Research Center for scientists to study
these animals and actually when joining a tour later there are always scientists
there on the boat with you which can make later the most informational
experience of them all the tour leaves from the town of Padre Pio's which if
you see on the map is very close to the island of Bohol and Cebu the price of a
boat in Leyte is nine thousand filipino pesos which is about $175 u.s. and they
will leave with a minimum of two people this is the most expensive but also the
most wild option of them all next we move to the island of Cebu the town of
Oslo to be exact this whale shark experience is riddled with controversy
and is by far the most popular place to engage with whale shark tourism in the
Philippines and maybe even the world to briefly touch on it
whale sharks here are fed in order to keep them closer to the beach of the
town of Oslo this tour is about 1,000 Filipino pesos or $20 u.s. and sightings
are guaranteed year-round no matter the season the environment has beautiful
crystal-clear water but tons of tourists numbers of guests are estimated to be in
the thousands per day as tourists both local and foreign line up from the early
hours of the morning to paddle out about 60 feet from shore to swim with the
giant fish we won't talk too much about Ozlem right now but it's important to
note that this location has been a serious red flag for scientists sending
whale sharks whale sharks here are frequently seen with cuts and scrapes
around their mouths and bodies from over interaction with people and lastly we
move on to the town of done Seoul in the Bicol Region of the island of luzon
about a 12 hour drive or 1 hour flight from the capital of the Philippines
Manila Don Sola is the place where whale shark tours were born in the
and they have gotten it right besides being a huge help to local communities
which used to rely mostly on fishing there is now a booming ecotourism
industry in this tiny coastal town whale sharks are plastered everywhere here
with countless restaurants dive centers hotels and bars having names including
the word whale shark or gluten ding in done soul you have options quite a few
actually tours that our government run or privately owned our hearts were set
with a company called fun dive Asia led by Bobby Don souls first dive master and
head of the whale shark Association of Don's oh these people knew the spots and
were super professional and efficient the cost for a whale shark experience
with fun dive Asia is about 1,500 Filipino pesos or $30 u.s. and if you
want to scuba dive with both whale sharks and manta rays it'll run you
about 4,000 Filipino pesos or 80 US dollars so now that we've covered all
these locations let's dive back to a first day out on the water searching for
the blue tempting thank you sir sonic boom all right we have boarded the bunka
I love that it's just the three of us on here it is a little more expensive to do
it just like us because if you feel the boat actually gets a lot cheaper but
three of us have board and ready to go yeah was racing some whale sharks those
very seasoned whale sharks let's do it who's ready to see some whale sharks
doing getting skin but this time we cannot give you 100%
assurance of a whale shark doesn't get to
we're getting ready to jump in when they when they say it's time to jump in we
have our spotter up here he's hanging out at the top looking for whale sharks
and hopefully we'll see some a good time
I don't know how well you can hear me right now the kiss of the wind but we're
about in how we're in zero sights of whale sharks at the moment I don't think
any of the other boats have seen them either or stayed hopeful but nothing so
far so we're two hours in still no signs of
a whale shark nobody spotted one of the boats that we're on and
get a little less hopeful but maybe it won't spawn something all right
desperate times come for desperate measures that's not how the saying goes
but we're gonna move on we're gonna get a drone up in the air Boras drone right
now hopefully help us spot a whale shark so we're hoping for all right go we got
one hour left get us a whale shark Barca
we're gonna take advantage of this last hour to really aggressively search for
them we're coming up with nothing right now or close up in the air I'm standing
on the front of the ship that hopefully helps try spotting a little bit but
these things are very elusive animals and usually when you see them it doesn't
last for a long time so hopefully hopefully we'll get a little inch ling
of one thank you sir thank you so that is that's departing our bunka and defeat
we saw zero whale sharks we're try number one we are going to try this
again tomorrow but this time we're gonna wait for a group to come back so we have
at least confirmation that they sell whale sharks let's see if we can make
this happen let's bounce to tomorrow all right so it has now actually been a full
two days since we last spoke bright and early in the morning again at 6 a.m.
back here on Don Souls Beach here's the deal we have learned a lot in the past
two days all about whale sharks more things that I could put right now on
this bit of the video because we're about to head out and go try to find
them again but the reason that has been 2 days since we've gone to check is
because yesterday there were zero sightings out here the only confirmed
sightings of whale sharks we've heard about is buy an island culty cow island
there are tours that leave from here from Don sole the head out into the
waters over there they leave this Bay but the same community of whale sharks
also spreads out all the way over there and so a group of divers had spotted
from not wrong 3 whale sharks underwater when they were scuba diving and then for
whale sharks at the surface when they went out and so what we've organized
today is a very different approach than what we thought about essentially
today's a free ball we're going to be taking in all the adventure out to Tikal
Island we're not gonna actually set foot on the island but Bora and Daphne Daphne
actually flew in last night from Manila they're going to be scuba diving while
Moshe and I are going to be snorkeling we're gonna be hitting up three
different spots by Tikal Island one is San Miguel Island and then two of them
are called lamentable as it heads up why there's a chance that the aren't any
whale sharks went up from what we're understanding from locals they don't
like the volcano erupting I don't know if I mentioned this yet in this video
but the my own volcano is just behind me over there you can't see it right now
but it has been erupting for the last month and a half and animals tend to
feel things that humans cannot maybe being underwater something with the
tectonic plates or the shaking of the ground the shaking
has caused disruption in the whale sharks patterns but they are not hanging
on this area anymore it's been like six or seven full days now with zero
sightings and this is supposed to be the beginning of the season for whale sharks
and before the eruption they were seeing tons of them for what we've been told we
know they're out there we know that people have seen them recently so we're
gonna head out there today and let's see what happens
thank you sir
alright guys we made it to the beach good morning this is our crew for the
day morning oh yeah motion Borka and Daphne flew in
specially for this and today we're working with fun dive Asia they are a
company out here that does this tour the scuba diving tour out to see the manta
rays and the whale sharks and essentially we're partnering up with
them they're gonna be taking us out and you're gonna be meeting Bobby soon which
is the first dive master and all of them so he is like the og guy here he kind of
started it up here and I will be sitting down with him talking about the whale
sharks he kind of he's head of the whale shark Association here a minute we'll be
heading into the water heading off of this adventure
as our first our searching past the feeling that we wouldn't see a whale
shark started to settle and again the shores of DK island were beautiful and
full of life we saw sea snakes and dolphins and tons
of fish Bobby and his crew did a very good job keeping our morale up and let's
say before every dive now you searched for the whale shark so the divers jumped
in what's happening right now is that these scuba divers are jumping in the
water they're standing at their site to go see if they can see the whale sharks
underwater much more fine Daphne are gonna be right over there that's a dive
master
and we were gonna hightail it right now to can find some wildcards and now it
was just the snorklers four of us and two guides we started our search for the
booth ending on the surface I think the beautiful thing about searching for
whale sharks is that it makes you appreciate the size of our seas you
think the largest fish in our oceans would be easy to spot but no we were
told to prepare ourselves on the edge of the boat and be ready to jump in at a
moment's notice suddenly a fin was seen from afar our
crew began shuffling and the boat turned in the opposite direction the four of us
anxiously waiting to make the plunge five minutes go by ten minutes twenty an
eternity when you are in the littoral edge of your seat it felt as if our one
chance to see this magnificent animal had come and gone but with a serious
glare on our crews face we noticed something had changed our guides yelled
at us to prepare ourselves we hang off the boats edge this was the moment we
had been waiting for
nothing can quite prepare you for the size and scale of oil charm I've been on
Safari and have stood mere feet away from giant African elephants water
buffalo and even giraffes but nothing can compare to being in the water with a
giant whale shark this thing was huge we all watched in amazement as it circled
us completely on bothered by our presence filtering plankton from the
surface through its enormous mouth and spilling the excess water through its
mammoth-sized gills this whale shark was so big its dorsal
fin was causing waves to splash over me when it surfaced above the water
it was absolutely unreal to be swimming with the world's largest fish
so we've just arrived back from this whole whale shark experience fun dive
Asia absolutely killed it they have been an amazing sponsor to this video which
finally saw a whale shark guys we have a lot of things to talk about obviously
this videos not over this thing is a whole whole research bin in itself but
we are going to call it a day for today alrighty so it's now been two days since
we first saw the whale sharks I want to say a big thank you to fund that Vasia
because they are the ones who hosted us on this whale shark tour and they knew
where to go the guides were really really nice they're really awesome so
I'm really happy with the experience overall I will say it was very hard to
keep up with it because it was super fast luckily it was doing the same route
around us it was just going in circles around us so you could kind of predict
the where it was gonna go but keeping up with it was a bit difficult because it
swam so fast and the current was very tough and the clarity of the water
because the water isn't as clear because there's plankton in it one of the
coolest things has been learning about how this whale shark is helping local
communities here and so now we're gonna head back to Manila
and we're gonna do some more research on this whale shark okay so now that we're
back in Manila it's time to dig into why us love has stolen the show when it
comes to whale shark tourism is that the price is it the location well my friend
Mimi actually has the firsthand experience from the whale shark center
in those low so I thought it would be a good idea to call her up and ask her how
things went in Cebu Mimi we finally got you yeah okay
so I've brought you here to ask you a few questions and regarding to the
Ocelot whale shark experience mm-hmm first and foremost first of all if you
could introduce yourself who you are what you do alright so my name is Nene
and I'm a travel videos just like the wonderful town and but I'm a little bit
smaller but I love to travel and I love to just record videos and share
my experiences online so when it comes to the whale shark experience before we
dig in and kind of ask you about it how did you first hear about the the whole
you know effect that you could go swim with whale sharks in the Philippines and
Cebu specifically in Oslo how did you hear about it from another travel
bloggers and Christian LeBlanc or lost live long is his channel name and I've
been watching his videos for a while and I see wow that sounds really cool
because I have never done anything like this before and I don't know how to dive
like scuba diving so I thought that might be a cool like compromise to do
you know so that is when I first heard about it and we just took it into our
travel plan my friend and I and we decided to give it a go okay
so maybe now what I want you to do is I want you to essentially break it down
for us explain to us it's the day of the whale shark experience just narrate
essentially the story for us of what that day was like okay so basically they
told us the best time to go there it's early in the morning because there
aren't a lot of tourists yet and the animals haven't been fed as much so
there will still be a lot of whale sharks around so they told us we should
be there around 5:00 or 6:00 a.m. so we did that we hopped on a tricycle and we
went there and we basically paid 1000 Filipino pesos which is about $19 and
for the experience itself and then you have I don't know if you have to but I
think most of them do it like that that you have to enter through a kind of
resort and to walk through that resort you pay another 100 pesos which is about
$2 and then you get there and they put you in in groups and then they sit you
down they give you a little bit of instruction how to behave around the
animals what you're allowed to do and what
you're not allowed to do and then they also tell you a little bit about the
work that they do and that there are marine biologists who take care of the
animals and they make sure that everything is safe and that the animals
are safe you basically wait at the beach because there are so many people I
honestly that that was the first thing that shocks me when I got there I saw
that so many people and boats going in and out and in and out that was like how
how does that even work for the animals you know constantly being around so many
people and then we got on the boat and then they they go out maybe I don't know
what it was maybe 50 meters to the ocean and then they're constantly feeding the
the whale sharks that is how they keep them around probably so you see them
throwing in food into the water constantly and there is an incredibly
disgusting smell you you get into the water you basically have half an hour
the weird thing is what they said in the beginning that you're not allowed to
touch the fish of course which is totally understandable but the problem
is they are everything is so close together there are so many boats and so
many people and then they feed the fish like right out of the boat sometimes I
got touched by the whale shark even though I was trying to to get back you
feel kind of like you're in a zoo and yeah that's basically you get in the end
of half an hour you are surrounded by other tourists and people and they're
just constantly eating after half an hour you get on the boat again you go
out if there are any masses of other tourists coming in with their boats so
yeah it's not a very nice experience to be honest and I even must tell you
honestly I would be recommended I also told that so my viewers in my vlog that
I wouldn't recommend go in there if you guys don't know actually time to plug
this in me me actually made a whole video on this as well she kind of had a
video from the day so make sure you check that out in the description below
without obviously fiddling on it too much would you do this
no no everybody you wouldn't do that again no I really wouldn't because I
after the whole experience I felt kind of bad because I wish that I got more
information beforehand because if I knew what I know now I wouldn't have gone
there and I wouldn't have invested money in that kind of business and you can
feel free to deny this if you don't want to if you don't want to say or anything
but do you personally have any change that you would like to see or if there's
a way that you would like this to be done in the future is there any input
you want to put on that the Philippines is an awesome country and I actually I
really really love the cities and the people and everything it's amazing but I
think it would just be so much better if they in some areas would learn to take
care of the beautiful place that they have because if they keep going the way
they do in some areas it might not last forever you know what things can can
break nature you can destroy nature if you don't treat it well so I just really
hope that they would take better care of the beautiful nature they have because
it really has something unique and so beautiful and I would hope yeah I would
like to think any would still be there in five years or ten years you know me
me thank you so much this was fantastic this thank you so much after doing
extensive research about the whale shark interactions across the Philippines
I think it's relatively easy for me to draw conclusion as to why Oslo
he's so popular compared to southern leyte it or don't salt on a practical
level Leyte is more expensive so we can kind of push it to the side for now when
it comes to don't so Lars love things get a little fuzzy when you put the two
options side by side you realize that for one seeing whale sharks and don't
salt is cheaper by a fair bit of money actually as long as you can load up six
people on a boat which shouldn't be too hard to do
seeing whale sharks and Don Souls Bay is actually cheaper if we want to argue
locations sake well Manila and and Seoul are only an hour apart by flight shorter
than flying to Cebu and there are no shortage of things to do in the Bicol
Region so now that price and location are out of the way what's next well you
could argue viral tourism promotion etc etc
I think what it really comes down to is guarantee a guarantee that you'll see a
whale shark but nothing in nature is guaranteed and this video is a testament
to that and if you go to us log sure ten times out of ten you'll see a bunch of
whale sharks right off the shore and it's super easy to do it'll only cost
you about twenty dollars so it's easy for you to get inspired by browsing the
internet seen countless blogs vlogs and Instagram posts showing amazing pictures
and videos of people on vacation enjoying the awesome animals but if we
take this thing at face value for what it really is the animals are getting
hurt and if you go there have gone there or are planning on going there you have
contributed to that the main argument that I've heard from many of my Filipino
viewers defending Oslo is that the fishermen there rely on the whale shark
tourism for an income and if that goes away they'll just start hunting whale
sharks I'm not sure what the exact solution is to protect the animals in
Oslo but I know that our latter option does not need to be to kill them they
don't do that in don't Seoul and it doesn't need to happen in Cebu at the
beginning of this video I told you I don't want to sway your opinion on whale
shark tourism in the Philippines and I don't but I did want to present to you
the information in one clean concise and organized package at this point I would
like for you to draw your own conclusions and decide what you think
about this whole industry I'd like to take a moment again to say thank you to
the amazing brands who supported me on this venture to make this video happen
Sekai & co custom motorcycle tours through the Philippines this would not
have been possible without them maybe this happened they organized the whole
shindig and as well the countless footage and pictures I got from boar
clan Daphne who let me use their footage in this documentary this would not have
been possible without you for fun dive Asia thank you so so much for bringing
us into the water with this amazing animal
thank you for knowing where to go for being super professional and being super
helpful through the whole process for that we love you so much
we'd like to thank spittle as well spit o stick that's the stick I was using
kind of my stick underwater that I can press a button and have it switch
everywhere they have been awesome in supporting this video as well so we
thank you so much for that without these awesome companies this
video would not have been possible by myself I'm going to continue learning
about this amazing animal and I'd like to do a follow-up on this video someday
in the future for those of you who are avid viewers of mine I'd like for you to
tell me how I did what did you think of this whole video what did you like it
was enough for you please let me know down below for your new guys please
subscribe and turn on that notification button so you get notifications for me
when my new videos come out I assure you I don't think
my future videos will be like this at least not for a while but they give me a
shot because I'm a cool guy your Filipino word of the day today is
Boonton Bing which obviously means whale shark in Filipino we've covered that
about 40 times in this video and with that I'm gonna say goodbye I love you
long time class and I'll see you in the next video goodbye
you
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