I was so close to a real whale that I could reach out and touch it. I never believed that I would be able to write and say this, because I am deterred by big animals, even more than my wife's fear of cockroaches

As a child I have read the masterpiece Moby Dick, the imaginative descriptions of the novelist Herman Melville had planted in my mind the fear of whales. The closest a person like me gets to whales, is when we add to the food blessing on Sukkot holiday the verse "The Lord  will allow us to sit in a Sukka made of the whale skin of Leviathan".      i

Years ago, I took my young children to Sea World in Orlando, where we also saw the performance of a trained killer whale. It was caged in a huge pool with transparent walls. When I was recently invited to swim and dive with whale sharks in the Philippines, I felt like a child who is used to seeing lions in cages in the zoo, and now is invited to the safari for an open walk among the lions and tigers

In retrospect, swimming with these gentle giants was a powerful and unforgettable experience. We arrived to Donsol Bay at night, and we were given our rooms to stay in at the Vittom Beach resort

I woke up in the morning, left my room, and found myself right on the ocean shore. The water is quiet and smooth without any waves. There were only a few small boats in the sea, tied to anchors stuck in the sand on the beach. Picturesque silence around me. In the distance I could hear the tweet of birds and the faint shrieks of monkeys far away in the thick jungle that surrounds the resort. I was able to pray my morning prayer privately there, and study the "Daf Yomi".         i

Later on, my friends woke up as well, and we went to the pier adjacent to the nearby building

Firstly, we are required to watch an instructional and safety video, which reminded us of the stewardess briefing before a flight. Then we receive fins, diving mask and snorkels, and onward! We board the boats and go out into the open sea

The narrow, long boat is called a Banca. On each side there are stretched bamboo arms holding bamboo rolls as stabilizers of the boat. There are only four passengers on each small boat, except for three crew members. On the mast there is a spotter watching the open sea and looking for whale sharks. After a short while, he signals the instructor (BIO) that he has spotted a whale, and the instructor instructs us to jump in

We swim after him, we lower our head into the water, look through the goggles, and see nothing. The water is very clear. At the depth of the upper two meters it is completely clear, but the deeper it gets darker and dark blue. Below us everything is black and we do not see the bottom at all. After a few minutes, the instructor gestures us excitedly towards down right and shouts: "Dive!"          i

I dive less than a meter and suddenly I notice that on the right side a giant bus-sized fish is approaching us. Its mouth was wide open, and it swam towards us very slowly and quietly. Its skin is black with light freckles colored white, the size of a medium plate

This enormous sight is frightening and paralyzing at first. I'm Stuck, completely frozen and the whale is just a meter below me. This huge, clumsy beast progresses slowly with incredible tenderness which does not match its size. This sight reminds me of standing on a bridge at the train station when a train passes slowly under the bridge. Only in the water it happens in silence, and here we don't have anything steady under our feet that will separate us from the giant fish. The fish goes on and disappears, and the instructor signals us to return to the boat

I swim back to the boat, climb it, take off my fins and sit down. Only then do I realize that my heart is beating wildly as if I've sprinted a whole kilometer

I try to digest the intense experience I have just undergone. It reminds me of the prophet Jonah from the Bible. I realized that now I had the privilege of seeing with my own eyes what he had seen before the whale swallowed him. Inside the open mouth of "our" whale, three people can enter without huddling. For the first time in my life I could identify with the prophet Jonah, despite two differences: One – the whale did not swallow me. The other – the Mediterranean waters in the Jaffa area are not as clear as the waters of the Donsol Bay, and we can see clearly for about twenty meters inside the water

My biblical thoughts are interrupted when the instructor shouts to get ready for another dive. Another whale shark has been spotted nearby. We rush to wear our scuba fins, tighten our diving masks, and jump into the water. Soon enough we find another whale shark in the water. We swim quickly towards its path. We witness again the astonishing look of the giant fish beside and under us

While I am thrilled by the spectacle of the whale shark's head passing just below me, I notice that its upper fin is approaching me on my right, and may "run over" me. I swim forward quickly, and the fin passes behind my legs. My diving mask fills with seawater. Because of my careless movement, water go inside my nose and I rush up to the surface

Later it turns out that one of the photographers in our group did not notice the big back fin approaching him, and the fish's fin was rubbing against the photographer's belly. If Bastian had been a foot lower, he might have been hit and dragged by the big fin. Scary

As we climb into the boat, Bastian tells us that the fin's touch on his abdomen was very rough and very strong. "Like a grater in the kitchen with big teeth that rubs the skin" he describes

Swimming with the Whale Sharks is called "Butanding" here. In fact it's not a whale, but a giant shark. It is the largest fish in the world. These whale shark's reach the Donsol Bay from March to June each year, and from there continue to wander to the shores of Australia and the Galapagos and so forth

And so the boat continues to sail, the spotter stands on the mast and searches for more whale sharks. About half an hour later he spots another one. We sail towards it, and jump off the boat again, and dive. Three meters below us lay the huge fish the size of a truck. Not moving. Apparently our movements in the water disturb it, and it begins to move away. This time I've gained confidence, and I'm not as scared as the first few times. But the excitement still remains the same. I start to swim above the giant fish. I was right above it for about a minute. Yet I do not reach out to touch it, because the instructor warned us "to keep distance" (as if he was "Mashgiach" in a Yeshiva).          i

The whale shark is faster than me. As I swim over it, I See its body passing by slowly below me, until I see only its tail moving away in front of me. I felt quite comfortable with it. Suddenly the whale shark starts to slow down, as if playing with me and letting me close the gap between us. I keep swimming until I am above it again, and we both advance at the same pace as my swimming. I have a feeling that the whale feels comfortable with me too. So I dive over and next to it for about 100 meters. There are no words that can describe this amazing feeling

We board the boat again to continue sailing. The cruise lasted for about three hours, during which we saw five whale sharks. Friends who dived under the whale say that its belly is completely light colored, creamy or white

It was our honor that we shared the boat with a "human shark" – the Philippine ambassador to Israel, Mr. Nathaniel Imperial

There are many types of tourist attractions in the world and in the Philippines, but this amazing experience of diving with whale sharks is available only in the Donsol Bay. It is worth flying to the Philippines just for this reason, except for all the other tourism benefits of the Bicol Islands

It was a very exciting and memorable experience. I got to personally uphold the verse "This whale, which you created to play with" (Psalm 104/26). I am convinced that from now on, on every Rosh Chodesh (Beginning of the month) and on every holiday, when I pray the psalm of "Praise the Lord, my soul", it will hold a different meaning than before. It will never be the same again

Photographs: Uri Magnus Dotan www.polmagnus.com, and Golan Yosifon

Translated by Neta Shermister