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TEXT: ANGELA SPEIRS (MUM)

THE BIGGEST FISH IN THE WORLD, LIKE THE SIZE OF MY SCHOOL BUS AND MUM TELLS ME I CAN SNORKEL RIGHT UP BESIDE THEM AND SEE MANY OF THEM IN JUST THREE HOURS! HMMM...CAN THAT REALLY BE TRUE? SHE'S BEEN DIVING FOR AGES AND STILL NEVER SEEN ONE BUT WE'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT GOING TO SEE THE WHALE SHARKS IN DONSOL FOR MONTHS. IT WAS ALL GETTING SOOO EXCITING!

I'm Robbie and after my ninth birthday last Easter we went to see the hundreds of whale sharks in the Donsol area of the Philippines, 348 of them to be exact! Well, that's what Darren, the WWF (World Wildlife Foundation) guy told me when Mum and I visited his office in Donsol town. "Darren, how do you know there are 348 whale sharks?" I asked. He pulled out some photos, "Well that's easy. WWF has guys who swim alongside these huge animals and take a picture of their side fin and gills. We use the patterns in this area because it's like our thumbprint – each one is unique. Then WWF use these photos to name and number every whale shark and their identity is stored in a massive worldwide database on www.whaleshark.org. Sorsogon has one of the highest concentration of whale sharks in the world. Plus they are regularly found close to the shore so Donsol has been setup as an eco tourism destination which means the local villagers now depend on the whale shark tours for their livelihoods". Manila, Legaspi, Donsol!! Every year over a 100 whale sharks visit Donsol from November to June while the rest stay here year round. Darren also told me that so many come around these months because there's lots of plankton – "super concentration" he says. Easter's also when the seas are calmest to visit this area so in April we took our one hour flight to Legaspi from Manila. At the airport, we got picked up by Dive Central Asia who arranged all of our trip to visit the local sites and see these rare creatures.

Main: Robbie, 9 years old and ready to snorkel into Donsol's waters for his next Whale Shark Interaction, 1 of 22 in 3 days! Top right: Over 348 whale sharks in 2011 have been uniquely recorded and identified by the WWF in the waters of Donsol. Right: Many of the BIOs (Butanding Interaction Officers) were once part of the overfishing issue in the region but now are part of the solution to sustainable eco tours in Donsol.

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Our first stop was the Cagsaua Ruins just eight kilometres from Legaspi. In the middle of the ruins was a church that was built around 1724 and since I was born in 2002, it MUST be very old! The guides at the ruins there said cement wasn't even invented back then so the church is built from volcano rock glued together with egg whites, sugar cane, ash,

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93 Opposite page: A WWF volunteer freedives to collect photographs of the animals's fins and gills to track the whale sharks in Donsol. Some surviving walls of the Cagsaua Ruins. This page: A mother and her two kids snorkel above a whale shark which can be found up to 12 metres in Donsol waters. Traditional boats called banca's are used for the Whale Shark Interaction Tours in Donsol. The C tower is made from volcanic rock and built only with egg whites, sugar cane, ash, corals & limestone as glue!

coral & limestone which sounded like something from my school's science projects. Next stop was Lignon Hill which overlooked Legaspi and if you don’t suffer from vertigo you might even try one of the extremely high zip wires from the top of the hill to get an aerial view of the town. “This is all very interesting Mum but when do we get to see the whale sharks?” So after about an hour drive from Legaspi we arrived in Donsol, settled into our room at the Elysia Beach Resort and dipped into the ocean facing pool. When dinner came around, we met a 71 year old retired physics teacher from the USA, Mr Andrew Dienes, who showed us his underwater snapshots from his day’s adventure with the whale sharks. He had seen and swam with six of them during his three hour trip on his first day! I could tell from his underwater photos he had been up really close so now I was even more excited to meet these giants! Let the Tours Begin The next morning right after breakfast, we headed for our Whale Shark Interaction Tour and for a change I 'could' go in the

water with Mum instead of waiting for her to finish diving. Everyone had to watch a short information video about how to shark watch safely before boarding our boat. The video showed us that only six people are allowed to snorkel with a whale shark at a time, so it was also the most number of people to a boat during its three hour tour. We're not allowed to touch the whale sharks as this might make them sick and we have to stay at least three metres away from them and four metres away from the tail. This was also the only whale shark tour company allowed in Donsol and it's run and setup by the villagers, the LGU (Local Government Unit), WWF (World Wildlife Fund) and the DOT (Department of Tourism) to help protect the whale sharks. So with my head full of the safety regulations, I collected my fins, mask and snorkel and headed to the boat. Onboard Michael our BIO (Butanding Information Officer) – Butanding is the Tagalog name for whale shark – gave us a talk about how to enter the water. Everyone had to get ready at the same time with fins and mask and snorkel on. When he gave the

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signal we would jump into the water, follow Michael and snorkel over to the whale shark. Then I looked up and there was a guy way up at the top of the mast. "Michael, what's he doing up there?". Michael said he was our spotter. He also used to be a fisherman here until the seas

became so overfished that it was too hard to earn a living. Many of the fishermen from Donsol know the area so well that they now crew for the Whale Shark Interaction Tours. "So Michael how on earth can he see them underwater?" Michael replies "Well, they look for dark shadows on the top of the water or bubbles coming up..." Suddenly he points out to the water and shouts, "Over there!” and we go to the edge of the boat. "Go", instructs Michael and we jump in. I stick close to Mum in case she gets scared. As I'm finning along with Michael, I look down and there it is looming up from beneath – a huge mouth ploughing through plankton as it glides towards us almost in slow motion. "Oh my gosh", I gasp, "it's mouth is big enough to swallow me!" I looked at my Mum and figured she was feeling a bit nervous now too. "Let's get out Mum, we've seen one now..." I said nervously. Back on the boat, I couldn't stop thinking about that huge mouth on the whale shark and didn't want to go in the water again. Much bigger than tiny me which

reminded me of my Moby Dick bedtime stories! Mum was having so much fun though. She kept trying to convince me to go back in the water and that they only ate tiny plankton but I decided that someone needed to take care of the iPhone and check out the games on the boat! The crew kept on spotting one whale shark after another and with all the excitement, I couldn't even concentrate on my high score. Everyone kept jumping back in from the boat and following these gigantic creatures, sometimes for up to 10 minutes. They were even in such shallow water that Michael and the others were freediving to get an even closer look underwater.

Then I saw another boat with a whole family; kids, parents and even grandparents. The kids looked bigger than me and they were all snorkeling around another whale shark. "Wait a minute, are they wearing life jackets?" I snickered. "Imagine, they're bigger than me and need life jackets? That does it, I'm not on the school swim team for nothing!" I thought, “I’m going back in!" I quickly put on my snorkeling gear and the next time Michael spotted a whale shark for us I propelled myself in. This time, the whale shark swam steadily towards me until suddenly I was right above it. I finned and finned as though I was in one of my swimming heats to keep up with giant animal as its massive tail waved gently from side to side. I felt a bit sorry for Mum now as she just couldn't keep up with the whale shark and me! After that there was no stopping me as I snorkeled alongside Michael and the whale sharks, leaving Mum in the wake of my fins. Now I was excited to jump back in to see the next one! In the three days of boating three hours a day, we totaled 22 whale shark encounters lasting from about one to 10 divetheblue.net

95 The C tower is made from volcanic rock and built only with egg whites, sugar cane, ash, corals & limestone as glue! Andrew Dienes, the 71 old retired physics professor on his first ever trip to visit the whale sharks of Donsol.

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minutes each time. I just couldn't wait to get back in the water and tell all my friends about it back home. It was fantastic! Homeward Bound "Mum, do we really have to leave?" I was so sorry our holiday with the whale sharks was ending, "Can't we do one more tour to see the whale sharks again, pleassse?" "How about we come back again next Easter Robbie?" replied Mum. Fair enough I thought because I knew our flights were already booked for Manila and I've never been able to get around that one. School was starting soon too. Sigh! "So can we come back with my buddy Lucas and their parents next year? Maybe Grandpa and Grandma can come along with Mr Dienes too? I'll bet they've never seen so many big fishies in one place! Have you?"

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The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, a 1,200-mile chain of islands and atolls, is one of the most remote places on Earth, far from human civilization and largely uninhabited. Its beaches are strewn with manmade garbage, reefs straggled by hundreds of tons of discarded fishing nets and countless decaying dead albatross with only the remnants of plastic and other debris in their carcasses. Jean-Michel Cousteau’s report on the Kure Expedition can be found on www.oceanfutures.org sportdiving magazine april/may 2012

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