By Sara Moen

Holbox or Bust: An adventurous weekend swimming with the whale sharks on Holbox Island.

I have never considered myself an adrenaline junkie; I don't jump out of planes, I don't go ice climbing in Alaska, heck I don't even scuba dive, but since moving to Mexico nearly 5 years ago I have definitely become more adventurous. I have held an 8 foot long reticulated python, I have climbed up the 175 feet to the top of Coba (and I am not a fan of heights), I have even gotten lost in the middle of the jungle and had to cut down palm fronds for a make shift bed. Needless to say my life is never dull so when 3 friends of mine invited me to go swimming with the whale sharks on Holbox Island I jumped at the chance. Well, maybe more like hopped, I mean whale sharks can get up to 55 feet long so I was a bit wary on whether I was actually going to get in the water with the world's largest fish. I mean what if one hiccupped and swallowed me whole?

The girls picked me up at 7:00 AM on Saturday morning because our goal was to get to the island by around noon, and have the afternoon to relax and enjoy the island before we did the whale shark tour the following morning. We decided to try a new route rather then go all the way through Cancun. If our map served us correctly we would cut off at least an hour. We headed out La Ruta de Los Cenotes in Puerto Morelos and although the road was rough (I recommend a truck) we made it to the next little town of Vicario Leon, in about an hour. Onward to La Esperanza, and finally to Chiquila, where you catch the water taxi to Holbox, and we made record time; 2 and ˝ hours! We caught the water taxi across to Holbox, which took about 20 minutes, and on the other side we flagged a golf cart taxi to shuttle us and our things to our final destination, Hotel Mawimbi. Keep in mind June, July, and August are high season on Holbox so if you plan to go make sure you have a reservation somewhere prior to leaving. We had been planning this trip for months and had a reservation, but upon arrival they did not know who we were....UH OH! They had 4 very mad women to deal with, but upon closer inspection it was our error in a previous e-mail correspondence that resulted in our cancelled reservation. Thankfully there were cancellations so we were able to scramble to get ourselves settled for the next two nights.

Where to stay: Hotel Mawimbi is a beautiful bungalow style posada with only 9 different rooms, and it is clean and quiet, and you can NOT beat the location right on the beach overlooking the beautiful sea. The grounds were immaculately kept with plenty of palms and hammocks to encourage relaxation and lazy afternoons. I mean, my goodness, there is a guy who sifts the sand by hand to make sure there is no debris to harm the bare foot lifestyle of the island. Although there is not a restaurant on site they provide breakfast of tea, coffee, toast and jam for a nominal charge as well as cold beers upon request. There are a handful of similar hotels scattered along the island's shore, but you can also go closer into the zocalo for more budget friendly accommodations. I encourage the beach side, I mean come on you are on vacation!

Where to eat: For such a small island there are actually quite a few places to choose from to grab a snack, have a pina colada, or sit down for dinner. Right next door to Hotel Mawimbi there is Carioco's which offers grilled seafood, sandwiches, tacos, and a full bar. They were friendly and the service was quick, and they had the crispiest fries! Although it looks like it is an abandoned building from the front, go on in and enjoy a cold Michelada, and an order of fries, and you won't be disappointed. El Faro Viejo was a bit further down the beach and looked clean and inviting from the front, but they certainly had some service challenges! I enjoyed my shrimp scampi, and my post dinner pina colada, but out of the 7 women that were eating together not everyone was pleased with their selection. Try homemade pastas and risottos from Italian owned Pelicano's off the zocalo and you won't be disappointed, or grab a delicious grilled Panini to eat on the beach from Café Azul, but by far my favorite spot was the funky beach shack with cold beers and complimentary fresh fish ceviche served on a leaf.

The Whale Sharks: Okay, now the we have gotten eating and sleeping out of the way let me tell you about the whole reason we went to Holbox Island in the first place; the whale sharks. There are only a handful of places in the world that you can witness the truly incredible experience of swimming with the largest fish in the world; Western Australia, parts of the Philippines, and Zanzibar are a few, but the waters off Holbox are famous for the abundance of whale sharks that come seasonally, in June, July, and August, to feed off of the plankton rich waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

We booked our trip through our hotel, which is required if you plan on staying for less then 5 days. The tour includes all equipment, sandwiches, fruit, and non-alcoholic beverages of pop, water, and various juices. We had to meet down on the beach by 7:00 AM to sign a release form. Release form I said? What have I gotten myself into? But really it was just routine information, guidelines, and rules. They will only take up to 8 people per boat and only 2 people plus a guide were allowed in the water at a time. So the four of us piled in the golf cart taxi to the dock a few blocks away and we met our other companions for the day, an Italian woman traveling with her two children from Genoa, Italy. I immediately hit it off with her son, Pietro Possenti, an 11 year old shark expert and future marine biologist. Upon a further conversation with his mother, an avid diver, she told me she made the trip so Pietro could experience this once in a life time opportunity to swim with the whale sharks: nice mom! Pietro kept asking me to ask him shark questions so I fired away. Did you know that a whale shark can live up to 150 years? Or did you know that they are the largest shark in the world, the second being the meat eating Great White? And can you believe that they can weigh up to 37 tons and can measure up to 17 meters? To say the least he was a definite joy to have along for the ride, hmmmm maybe he worked for the tour company.

As we sped across the glass like water we saw dolphins everywhere playing with each other and catching breakfast, although we were dying to get up more closely, they were keeping their distance. One of the most spectacular sites was a school of rays that looked like they were flying under our boat, I have yet to count them from the photo we took, but I have to say there were at least fifty, and it gave me goose bumps. We continued on until we finally started to see the whale sharks lazily swimming around and filtering the plankton, small squid, and vertebrates as they enjoyed their first meal of the day. Pietro was itching to jump in and had his wetsuit and gear on in no time, along with his mom; they were the first to take the plunge.

Basically the boat slowly circles around as two people and the guide stay perched on the side of the boat, and once they give you the signal of "tirar", which literally means throw, you jump in and madly start swimming to get in close to the whale shark. Although they seem to lumber, one slow pump of the tail and they can leave you in the "dust". I waited to see how other people approached them before I finally decided to push myself to get ready to jump. My heart was pounding in my ears, but once I heard "tirar" away I went into the cool deep waters paddling my heart out towards this mammoth of a fish. The guide was directing me to follow him and I swam hard to keep up, but once he grabbed me and tried to bring me closer in I panicked a bit and decided not to get in so close. If you can see the eye, and gills of the shark, I think you are close enough thank you very much! I finally ran out of breath, partly from swimming and partly from adrenaline, and I returned to the boat a little disappointed that I didn't get really close, and felt that I had "wimped" out. Not to be easily discouraged I waited until I could take another turn, and headed back into the aqua green waters. This time there was an older whale shark that moved more slowly then his younger and friskier counterpart earlier, and I could take my time following him as he lazily came up and down weaving through the water. I was so enthralled I didn't notice another one coming up behind me and I was literally sandwiched in between 2 whale sharks, which resulted in a squeal through my snorkel! As I headed back to the boat a shark sucker tried to attach himself to my back which got me flying up the ladder back into the boat. We took our time getting back munching on sandwiches and excitedly recapping our experiences. We stopped about half way back to the island for a land based bathroom break (there is not a toilet on the boat), and a chance to snorkel and see schools of parrot fish, and a cat shark, before we finally were ready to return to our island retreat for an afternoon siesta. As we hopped over the side of the boat in front of our hotel ,we tipped our captain and guide, thanked them profusely and although we were all a bit sunburned and tired, we were fully satisfied from a once in a life time day. I can not even describe what an incredible experience it was; an opportunity I will not soon forget and will surely take again whenever I get the chance. If I could I would go back tomorrow.......

Have a shark question Pietro didn't answer? Click here.

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