Isla: My Birthday Outing

Today started much the same as the day before . . . with Rod singing to me. Instead of "Happy Birthday to you," he changed the words to "Happy Birthday observed." It was cute. To celebrate, Rod had booked us a trip on a boat to swim with the whale sharks. We had initially planned on swimming with dolphins, but after hearing about this opportunity, we just couldn't resist. Besides, you can swim with dolphins at most resort towns and they are in tanks. Swimming with whale sharks would be a much more wild and (hopefully) animal friendly experience.



Picture courtesty of ZooZoo2


It was magnificent and these photos (and the video we took) do not do it justice. The whalesharks are humongous, the size of a bus at least, and they were EVERYWHERE! Our captain stopped counting when he got to 29. Every time we turned around there was a new whaleshark surfacing. The captain would drive the boat up close to a shark, and the three people "on deck" would jump in with their snorkel gear and swim as fast as they could towards it. When it was our turn, I could not believe how much bigger the sharks looked up close. There were three of us swimming in a single file line and we still did not cover the full length. It was a bit unnerving looking over to see those huge gills and an eye starring right at you. The water was so clear we could see everything down to the sharks spotted belly. Eventually the shark would swim away, and we would either swim to another whale or get back on the boat to wait for our next turn. We spent the whole morning doing this and it never got old (though my legs did get FRIED despite the fact that I constantly applied 50 SPF).

According to wikipedia, the whaleshark is the largest living fish species. They can grow up to 40 feet and weigh up to 15 tons. The sharks can live up to 70 years and are believed to have originated about 60 million years ago. They are filter feeders so we did not have to worry about getting eaten, we just had to watch out for their gigantic tails. We were careful not to touch them, but a couple members of our group were touched by the sharks. It was one of the coolest things I have ever done and made for an unforgettable birthday.

On the way back, we stopped for some snorkeling. The water was crystal blue and (much) better than the diving we have encountered here. I'm not sure if it is because we are in a class or whether our divemaster just does not know or have the patience to take us to good spots, but we have been underwhelmed with diving here. The snorkeling was much better, and we even saw dolphins. Rod jumped in to swim with them just as they swam away.

While we were swimming our captain made us ceviche. It was SO good. I cannot say enough great things about the company that took us out. Now if only I could remember their names!

As we docked, we noticed our divemaster setting up another boat and decided to hop on with him to finish our last dive (rather than wait until later that afternoon). This dive was our buoyancy dive. It was a better location than our previous dive, but because there was a girl in our group who totally freaked out, we spent most of our time (and air) sitting in one place waiting for the divemaster to return. At least there was pretty coral and it was our last dive. I never thought I would say I was glad to be done diving, but the Isla diving experience has left a bad taste in my mouth. I didn't help either that I fried myself lobster red. At least I saved the too-painful-to-walk sunburn until our last full day.

Check it out. LOL!

We got back just in time to watch an incredible sunset before catching our 8 p.m. reservation at Olivia's, the new and very popular Mediterranean restaurant. It was overrated, but we had a very romantic birthday dinner.