Monday, April 07, 2014

Travel: Donsol Philippines (Mar 14)

Our Cebu pacific Flight from Manila to Legazpi was flying in the air for 15mins and decided to turn back to Manila due to technical problem. In the end, we changed the aircraft and our flight was delayed for 3hrs. (Pretty Scary considering the recent MH370 Incident)

View of Mt Mayon (2400m) from Legaspi Airport.


The beautiful view of sea from Elysia Beach Resort


Our spotter and guide searching for Whale Sharks.

Another Spotter


Swimming with the 8m long Whale Shark!!! 
Exhilarating experience!!

It is the best animal interaction I ever had. Surreal experience. Swimming slowly with this graceful giant.



Excited. =)



Waiting to jump into the water again.

Within half an hour, we managed to have 2 interactions with the Whale Sharks. We were really lucky, after that, we waited 2.5hrs in vain. 


Enjoying the sun and the breeze.


Sunset.


After dinner, we decided to do the firefly tour in the swamp area: 
A Christmas Tree of Fireflies pulsating in synchrony in the dark. 
Amazing experience!!
I have never seen anything like this before.
This photo does it no justice. Imagine thousands of fireflies lighting up a tree. :))





Elysia Beach Resort
(Basic Room, but really nice environment.)


Breakfast View

Breakfast

This is one of the best breakfast experiences I had in recent time. 
Nothing special, except a Great view of the sea & beach, No Crowd, Peaceful, Nice Breeze, Soothing background music, Body not in pain.
Perfect!
What more do I need. =)


Another view of the resort.


Donsol. 

Peaceful.

The beach and sand wasn't the best, and visibility of the water is okay only. I went for swim in the ocean (hoping to spot Whale Sharks while I was swimming), and then, I started thinking of the possibilities of seeing other sharks in the water. This thought freaked me out, and I decided to swim back to the shore immediately. Haha. 


2nd Day Whale Shark Interactions


9m long Whale Shark 

Swimming really slowly


Graceful Creature


View above the Shark

View from the back


Front View (Taken by SM)

We had an amazing 2nd day experience swimming with the Whale Sharks - 3 encounters. We had a quality interaction, where we swam together with the whale shark for at least 2-3 minutes.


Compilation of the Whale Sharks Interaction for the 2 days: 5 encounters. =)
And one item struck off from my bucket list.

My group was really lucky, as my friends (those who arrived a week earlier and a week later) did not manage to see any whale sharks. Apparently, those 2 days when I was in Donsol, were the days with the most encounters with the Whale Sharks during that 3 week period.


What better way to end the tiring day with a massage by the beach.
=)

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