When I first flipped through my Mexico Lonely Planet (which, by the way, really needs to be updated from its current edition), the first thing that really caught my eye was in the section for the Yucatan Peninsula. As it claimed, every summer between July and September, large schools of whale sharks congregate in the warm waters near Isla Holbox, off the northern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula, making for a remarkable (albeit expensive) snorkelling experience. At that point, I circled the box in my guide, drew a big star beside it, and dog-eared the page. Now, almost 8 months later, I was stepping off of the ferry and onto Isla Holbox.
Unfortunately for my grand dreams of swimming with the biggest fish in the sea, I was greeted by ominous clouds and the news that it had been storming for the past few days. To make matters worse, as soon as I began asking around about whale shark tours (which are the only real tourist draw to the island, and hence are offered by every guy and his grandma) I was informed that this season hadn't been that good so far. Usually the sharks are only about an hour away from the island by speedboat, but this year, for some reason (*cough*globalwarming*cough*) they were about 2 hours away. The price hike that went along with this news wasn't much of a deterrent, because at that point I had already hauled myself way off of my travel path to get there. However, the good news just kept on coming, as I was told that the sea had been too choppy to go out for the last few days, and that the group that had gone out on the day before I arrived had seen nothing. Perfection! This was confirmed by a girl staying at the hostel, who had tried to go out three days in a row, only to be told by the tour company each morning that they couldn't. She would subsequently leave the island after another two unsuccessful tries, and the next day I would go out and see about 50 whale sharks just chilling. Ya win some, ya lose some.
On Isla Holbox, whale shark tours are like commodities - the prices don't really differ because there isn't much to differentiate yourself on. That being said, I was widely quoted about 1000 pesos for the tour. Normally I would have just gone with the first company I found, but I had heard a lot of mixed reviews from other travellers - one girl said it wasn't even worth it because she was only in the water for 10 minutes with the sharks. This is because Mexican laws prohibit more than two people and one guide from being with any given shark at one time, in order to avoid upsetting the animals. Fair enough. However, if I was going to drop a chunk of dough on this, I wanted to make sure it would be good. After a lot of online reading, I chose to check out Mawimbi, which was well-recommended and also the only tour operator to answer any of my email inquiries (my BCom customer service radar had already piqued at this point). They charged a fair bit more than the others (1500 pesos), but they had "the fastest boat on the island" as a standout feature, which they said was the same one that WWF uses. More importantly, unlike most of the other tour operators, they would let you spend as much time in the water as you wanted to - they wouldn't leave until you no longer wanted to be in the water. That pretty much sealed the deal for me. The woman I dealt with was so nice that, when she found out I was travelling for 5 months, she waived the 5% credit card surplus fee without me asking. Big win. Seriously though, if anyone finds this post by searching Google for (as I did multiple times) "what is the best whale shark company on Isla Holbox", go see the great folks at Mawimbi.
On the morning of the tour, the weather was perfect. The very chill captain geared us up, and as we set off from the beach he gave us the rundown on rules - no touching the whales, no flash photos, and only 3 at a time with a given whale were the most important ones. As we sped across the open water, the boat suddenly cut the engine and came to a stop. A pod of dolphins passed by about 30 feet away. At that point, we knew it was going to be a good day.
Just under 2 hours from when we left the beach, we reached our destination - where about 20 other boats were already floating. At first, I was a little buzz-harshed about this, as the thought of all those people and only a few whales wasn't all that exciting. However, I soon realized that the water was teeming with them. They were swimming up to the boat, and as soon as one passed, there would be another right beside you again... I could have spat off the bow of the boat and probably hit a whale at any given moment... It was like shooting whales in a barrel... You get the point.
Although the adrenaline started pumping as soon as we arrived, I still wasn't that impressed. Sure, there were whales swimming around everywhere, closer than I had ever seen such a large marine creature before. But from the top of the boat, it still left something to be desired. As soon as I got in the water, that quickly changed.
Imagine having an 18-wheeler coming directly for you, except that you're underwater, and the 18-wheeler has a giant gaping mouth that looks like it wants to inhale you. Yeah, that was sort of what it was like.
I never thought that an animal that big could move so gracefully. Sometimes, when you watch Shark Week on Discovery, and hear the stories about 20-foot great whites that "sneak up" on people, you wonder how you could be snuck up on by a 20-foot anything. Well, a whale shark managed to do it to me, several times. Suddenly you would turn around, and there it would be, mouth wide open, coming straight for you, only to move out of the way at the last second, as if annoyed that you were in its way in the first place. Unbelievable.
Our group was really good in terms of not breaking rules. Sort of. We never actually touched the whale sharks. It was more like they touched us. These things litterally passed within a foot of you, and on one occasion, I didn't manage to get out of the way of its tail in time, and got tossed like a ragdoll. Once our guide realized that none of us were going to do anything stupid (especially since two Italians in our group were shooting with what must have been $10,000 in underwater camera equipment), we were allowed in the water more than 2 at a time. For the next two hours, I swam around with whale sharks, at first taking dozens of photos and videos, and then simply trying my best to ingrain the experience into my memory. It wasn't until two of my toes were literally rubbed raw from the flippers that I went back to the boat (and I went back into the water once more after that with the help of some water socks).
After we left the whale shark, we stopped at a few more places, where we saw fish, coral, and flamingos. But at that point, I could have cared less. I probably wouldn't even have been impressed if a dolphin leaped up into the boat.
When I got back to the hostel, I was a little shocked at the mediocre response of some of the others who had gone with another tour company. They didn't seem all that impressed. Sure, it was cool, but not that cool. When I dug a little deeper it made sense. They had mostly spent about 8 minutes in the water - two shifts of 4 minutes - and the rest of the time watching the whales from the boat. To boot, the boat would drive up in front of the whale, the captain would rush them into the water, and suddenly the would be faced with an oncoming whale which they then had to keep up with. I resisted the urge to go into great detail about the 2+ hours I spent in the water, swimming around at my leisure, dirty-whore of a snorkeller that I was switching from whale to whale and then back again as I pleased. It was my dirty little secret.
Swimming with whale sharks was my biggest budget-breaker so far on this trip, but it was worth every penny, especially the extra ones that I spent to go with Mawimbi instead of another tour operator. I can undoubtedly say that it was one of the coolest things I've ever done. The only problem though, is that now the stakes have been raised, and my future snorkelling endeavours will have some serious standards to meet. That's ok though, because I've already figured out what's next in order to keep the bar set high. Great whites.
No comments:
Post a Comment