Hi guys, before I get into the details of this story I feel a little background to the event would help set the tone of why this goes down as one of my greatest diving experiences.
My name is Paul known to most as @biggypauls as I am what you could describe as a large unit. One of my biggest passions in life is diving and a constant companion when i'm in the water is my camera set up. After over twenty years of diving all over the world I am finally getting to grips with the challenges underwater photography pose, the rules down here are quite different to those on dry land. From the first time I became a certified diver there was one beast on my list of things I wanted to see, a avid watcher of nature programs I had always wanted to see a Whale shark in the wild after seeing them on documentaries and being in awe of them.
As I traveled around the world I would try to time my dive trips to coincide with Whale shark seasons but it seemed I was always that unlucky diver. In Thailand with one dive centre we had two boats out and of course everybody on the other boat got to see one of these amazing creatures, a story that would repeat it's self over and over, be it in Cuba, the Red sea or various other places. Three years ago along with the wife we moved to Moalboal Cebu in the Philippines, this is where my luck started to change. The first few sightings were brief and somewhat distant but I was still the happiest chappy in the world, after twenty years I had finally broken my duck.
So this brings us to the day when I had one of my best ever diving experiences. It was a day like many where the plan was to dive Pescado island a couple of kilometers from the mainland, usually a great spot for tons of reef fish and stunning corals but generally nothing of great size. We made our way to the south of the island intending to dive the east side finishing in the north. All kitted up and our final safety check completed our group entered the water, for the first five minutes we enjoyed a abundance of colourful reef fishes as we descended down to a depth of about twenty meters, the water was especially clear that day which only added to what happened next.
Out of the blue this shadow started to appear, divers started to look back and forth at each other with obvious excitement, "is it ? YES! it is". A majestic Whale shark and best of all it was coming straight towards us.
Giant approaching.
Although looking to be moving slowly within a couple of seconds it was passing along side me, filling my lens unable to get enough distance I snapped away getting most of this giant in the shot.
That's pretty close.
At this point I thought it was about to swim off but it had no intention of going anywhere, in fact it seemed this big boy wanted to hang around and interact with us, playing with the bubbles from our scuba gear and swimming really close even nudging me gently on a couple of occasions. The rules of diving are look don't touch but if a beast of this size want to be touchy feely who are we to argue.
Circling back for more play time. 
Constantly so close to me I had to opt for some nice face shots.
Smile for the camera.
With limited air we knew this meeting would have to come to a end, after all we needed to meet up with our dive boat which had gone north expecting to pick us up there but these type of events are rare, so changing the dive plan was a must. We started to shallow up to conserve air as the deeper you are the quicker your air is consumed and guess who came up to the shallows with us, yes our new dive buddy looking great with the sun shining on it's face.
Getting a bit of sun.
In all the excitement I forgot I had also brought my gopro along, as it was time to leave I asked a friend to capture a bit of footage of me with the shark, who knows when a moment like this will come along again. That done we all had to make our way back to the boat, we had forty minutes with this gentle giant and it was hard to swim away but we can't breath under water so staying was not a option. Some events in life fade with time and photos help keep those memories alive but experiences like this stay with you forever. I'll finish off with a image of myself and the shark thanks to big Jim for shooting the gopro footage for me that this screenshot came from, it's one of those shots I couldn't have taken by myself.
Two big beasts getting to know each other.
All images captured by myself using a Canon EOS 60d with Tokina lens all kept safe inside a Ikelite housing additional lighting by way of two Ikelite strobes/flashes. Final shot is taken on a gopro.
Hope you all enjoyed this post, for me it took me back to a very special day, one I can but hope is repeated in the near future.
Special thanks to @timsaid for this cool challenge sponsored by @blocktrades and @theycallmedan.
A quick foot note I changed the first image as I realized after posting I had used it before.
Fantastic pictures.
I only tried diving once, in Turkey, ended up spinning around on the ocean floor, panicked and got to the surface as fast as I could, scooping my lady up also as I did, as I could see the fear in her eyes. Never done it since, neither of us lol.
Sounds like a bad experience, I find a lot of people get a poor first try then never go back again. It's a shame because with the right tuition it's quite easy to become a good diver and the under water world is a amazing place to spend your time, hope you give it another try some day.
Just after I wrote this to you, my good lady walked into the room and we looked back together with regards to that day, and she remembers it the same as me, the instructors were very lazy, told us very little, made us jump in, then mine pulled me to the sea bed and motioned me to stay on a rock, as he went up towards my lady, I started to spin around with the current, this is when I panicked, and she says she panicked because she had never tried breathing below water, and they never gave us time to try. Plus we were weighted with lead weights around our waist. I released mine when I got to the surface so they had to dive to get them back.
Maybe one day I shall try again. :-) Never say never.
Sounds like a poor example of how it should be done, but sadly familiar, so often a discover scuba experience(DSD) is badly performed resulting in what should be future divers leaving to never try again. When we do a DSD it takes about 2 hours, starting with a briefing then shown how the equipment works, this is followed by a session in shallow water to get used to breathing and calm nerves, then if all parties are happy we then take you for a dive, anything less is bad practice. Do hope you give it another try some day, maybe when all this virus thing is done you could treat yourselves to a holiday in the Philippines and come learn with us. Stay safe dude
I love Asia, so that is possible, these cowboys in Turkey just take 25 quid, chuck you on a boat, throw you in, take you to the bottom and expect you to know how, the only thing they said was thumbs up means you want to go up, but with nobody to signal, not sure how that was supposed to work out?.
Well that's certainly not our approach to diving, we have a reputation to maintain as almost all our work comes from reviews and word of mouth, we have managed to maintain #1 on tripadvisor in Moalboal for a number of years now. Would be great to see you out here. Maybe get to see some of the big boys featured in my @mypictureday post. Stay safe fella
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I'll have to get writing a bit more then:)
Thats the spirit! 🙂👍
That's an amazing experience, even reading about it! I don't dive, but I hope to one day be able to experience something like that! :)
Come visit us in the Philippines when this virus thing is over and we will teach you, you never regret it!
Congratulations on your achievement for the MyPictureDay contest @biggypauls
Your photography is outstanding and I thoroughly enjoyed reading your blog. (Following)
Thank you very much, I hadn't actually realized that I got second place, very happy with that.
I'm glad to be the bearer of good news. Very worthy recognition.
Thanks, kind words:)
This is a cool photo