Maite

It was a super early start, we had to be in the reception for 5:30am ready for our snorkel with Whale Sharks. I must admit I woke up at about 4am in absolute fear of what we were about to do and I couldn't get back to sleep. In all honestly doing this was all very last minute and I hadn't actually done any research about it but we had heard it was quite fun so thought we might as well.

By 6am we were being taken towards the shore and we realised it was unbelievably busy. Luckily our guide brought us through quite quickly and by 6:30am we were kitted up and on the boat. The boats only had to go out 200m and we began to see the sharks. Wow... Not even thinking about how nervous I was I jumped in. My confidence in these things are definitely growing! Would never had done something like this before. As soon as I got into the water a huge shark was about a meter infront of me and instead of panicking I was completely in awe of this gigantic creature. It was stunning and soo much bigger than I expected. At one point I was out of the water emptying water from my snorkel when all of a sudden I felt like I was in Jaws. All you could see was the top fun of the shark and I had to quickly duck my head under to check its direction. It was so much fun. We are pretty beginner at using our go pro still but we do have some footage that I will eventually convert into stills.

I came out realising how incredibly privileged I am to have had the opportunity to come to this incredible country and see these beautiful creatures over the last few days. Just wow.

For those environmentalists out there we have been doing research about swimming with the Whale Sharks and to be honest there is quite a lot of contraversy. Unfortunately the whale sharks are fed here which is why they can be so precise with the timings and they are fed all year round obviously this is not nature's way and so there is a lot of worry that this is making the animals dependant on human feeding and therefore impacting others down the chain. I must admit that this is very worrying as these animals are so immense and beautiful. I'm glad I had the opportunity to see these beautiful creatures but I'm not happy about its potential impact on the environment in the sake of tourism.

After we boarded back on land we walked back to the hotel, showered, changed, packed, went for breakfast at a local restaurant where we noticed all the boat guides went and began our journey to paradise.

The journey took about 3 hours and then half an hour on a tricycle but wow it was worth it. We booked out accomodation very last minute and as it had no reviews we were a bit worried, but wow wow wow. The room itself was basic but a very cute attic room, but the surrounding grounds were beautiful. Gorgeous palm trees, pebbled and grass areas, 2 sun loungers, bamboo hut seating areas and Will's absolute highlight, hammocks! We put our things down and he was the first to jump into the hammock. So happy in fact that I decided to sneak off to speak the owner, Cheryl, about getting Will a birthday cake. Let's be honest it's not a true birthday without cake, so fingers crossed one comes later for him!

We went to a restaurant recommended by Cheryl and it was really homey local food. Just what we needed. Then we went back to paradise, freshened up, finished up the blog and watched a beautiful sunset.

In the evening Cheryl and her son, Kirby, put on a little birthday party for a Will and it was super sweet!Okumaya devam et