Manila, June 10th 2007

It is one of the joys of being in the Philippines that something familiar to every Filipino is so completely unexpected to an average, well, Anglo-German.

When we went to Legazpi (Albay) in the South of Luzon in May, we were trying to see whalesharks. These rather gentle creatures are quite common in the Philippines, very large (up to 18 meters in length) and feed off plankton, mostly. I had little to no idea that whalesharks can be observed off the coast of Legazpi, so I was rather surprised when Ann said we can go there any time in between February and May to view rather many of these spotted behemoths.

So we did. Flights from Manila are short (45 minutes) and the sceneries quite astonishing. Most Filipinos will find my description profoundly boring, but I am still enthralled by perfect volcanoes ( Mt. Mayon), blue untouched sea, basically unreachable bays, firefly tourism (yes, people come here to see fireflies) and, well, whaleshark hunters turned tourist guides.

We had to get up early to be there at 7.30 a.m. to catch an early boat. It takes quite some time to take the outrigger to the feeding grounds of the whalesharks, usually a little more than an hour. What followed was pretty funny.

We were travelling with some of Ann's colleagues, who had opted to take the overnight bus/jeepney from Manila. Legazpi is a respectable distance from manila and rather full of history. But on the sea, we were all rather busy trying to fit into our gear, avoid eating too many snacks and jump into the water at a moment's notice with about 8-9 people at the same time to frantically snorkel to the spot in the blue sea where whalesharks had been sighted.

There are always 2-3 whaleshark spotters on each boat. How they manage to see the extremely well-camouflaged whalesharks in the morning seas remained mysterious to me. I suspected GPS units attached to... Just kidding.

The first time we jumped into the water I must have bumped at least two of my comrades-in-rubber, kicked Ann, got kicked by Ann, kicked the boat, hit my head on something (not the whaleshark), swallowed some saltwater, spit out some saltwater and looked frantically down into the deep blue sea.

I even saw a very large shadow for about 5 seconds. Must have been a whaleshark.

The second time, I jumped into the water, kicked, got kicked etc., looked down...and was faced with an enormous fish face. No kidding. About 3 yards in front of me, a whaleshark was slowly swimming his or her merry way towards some possible feeding ground. I got out of the way. Fast. Don't like being pushed aside by a few tons of whaleshark.

Then I calmed down and I looked for the first time. It takes quite a while for these beings to swim past. They are slow, have a fairly flat head "optimized" for plankton intake and rather enormous fins on all 4 sides of the body. They look like space ships that just about might survive flying deep in the atmosphere of a gas giant.

And they act unconcerned. There are few natural predators, except for the species of ape that, rather unwisely, has been called "sapiens". I was told that they live rather long life spans, but despite decades of observation, little is known about them.

We jumped into the water many times. We saw about 6 of these creatures, majestically swimming past. Touching annoys them, although they will not take accidents personally. Well. I dont know whether they would take the kick of a maladroit swimmer as anything threatening, but sometimes one of us got closer than we thought wise. Still, they are not dangerous, just shy.

There are other creatures of the deep in and around the Philippines. I had never seen a dolphin or a whale in the wild, so I was left quite touched by the experience. it is rare to feel that an animal is probably an equal to us in various ways. Whalesharks might not be as intelligent as other ocean dwellers (frankly, we don't know), but they have been on this planet for a lot longer than we have.

But there are not many of them. I hope they will survive us.

-Frank