This was the itinerary Happy Juanderer prepared for us for the 1st Day:
4:00am ETD from Hotel in Cebu City
7:30am ETA in Moalboal (Check in at Hotel)
8:00am Breakfast
8:30am Island Hopping (Pescador Island, Turtle Bay, Sardinas Island)
11:00am ETD Moalboal
11:30am ETA Badian (lunch)
12:00nn-4pm Canyoneering
7:00pm ETA Moalboal
8:00pm Dinner
3) Visit Oslob to see the Whalesharks (locally known as Butanding) and to Visit Sumillon Island
The next morning, we left for Moalboal at around 7am and arrived Tan-awan Oslob at around 8am. We had a quick briefing about what to do and what not to do while swimming with the whale sharks and was asked to don our life vests before getting on our boats. During the orientation, we were informed that we are not allowed to wear sunscreen and you have to wash it off in case you’ve already applied it earlier on. You can’t touch the whalesharks too, you have to be about a few meters away from them. We asked about the history of the Whalesharks in the area but the guy who gave us the orientation didn’t have a clue, so I saved my questions for later. Looking out, the spot where you swim with the whale sharks is very close to the shore. Boats line up to take in passengers and are one by one sent out to the encounter area. Once there, you are to gently get off the boat and swim with the whalesharks. To see them for the first time is really something! They are huuuuge! And such gentle giants too! They swim about peacefully and you could just stare at them and be in awe of such a beautiful creature!
While admiring these giants, I noticed how crowded it sometimes felt. Maybe the local government could help regulate this activity more. Maybe we can have the encounter a little further away from the shore so that there’s more space for everyone to appreciate their beauty or even keep the number of tourists at a certain number. I mean, I don’t mind if they charged higher if they can regulate the number of people who can participate in this activity, that way we can still make our encounter with these Whalesharks a more meaningful one. I’m also a little on the fence about hand feeding the whalesharks, if it’s true that they’ve always been around like what the locals say, then maybe there’s no need to hand feed them for them to stay in the area. I think whale watching in Donsol is a great example of responsible tourism.
To swim close to these giants felt surreal at times. I tried to stay as close to the boat as possible and just admire them from where I was. Sometimes they would swim so close that I had to swim further to make sure I was out of their way. There were about 8-10 whale sharks when we were there, locals say sometimes there could be as many as 20 at one time, so to see 10 was certainly a good number already.
After swimming with the whalesharks, we took a boat that brought us across to Sumillon Island popular for it’s white sands, fish sanctuaries and dive spots. It was nice because there weren’t a lot of tourists and it almost felt like we had the island all to ourselves. We had a simple lunch in our boat, perfect to fill our tummies from the morning swim.
4) Check out Tumalog Falls
After a quick shower in Tan-awan Oslob, we drove to Tumalog Falls which is only a few minutes away from Oslob. We parked our car and walked down towards the falls. I was so surpirsed with how I just kept seeing all these different types of natural beauty here in Southern Cebu. So far, I’ve done all these amazing things, and not one of them is like the last. Southern Cebu is such a travel gem and all these places are not even far away from each other. Check out these photos of the majestic Tumalog falls.
