Hi guys, before I get into the details of this story I feel a little background to the event would help set the tone of why this goes down as one of my greatest diving experiences.
My name is Paul known to most as 
As I traveled around the world I would try to time my dive trips to coincide with Whale shark seasons but it seemed I was always that unlucky diver. In Thailand with one dive centre we had two boats out and of course everybody on the other boat got to see one of these amazing creatures, a story that would repeat it's self over and over, be it in Cuba, the Red sea or various other places. Three years ago along with the wife we moved to Moalboal Cebu in the Philippines, this is where my luck started to change. The first few sightings were brief and somewhat distant but I was still the happiest chappy in the world, after twenty years I had finally broken my duck.
So this brings us to the day when I had one of my best ever diving experiences. It was a day like many where the plan was to dive Pescado island a couple of kilometers from the mainland, usually a great spot for tons of reef fish and stunning corals but generally nothing of great size. We made our way to the south of the island intending to dive the east side finishing in the north. All kitted up and our final safety check completed our group entered the water, for the first five minutes we enjoyed a abundance of colourful reef fishes as we descended down to a depth of about twenty meters, the water was especially clear that day which only added to what happened next.
Out of the blue this shadow started to appear, divers started to look back and forth at each other with obvious excitement, "is it ? YES! it is". A majestic Whale shark and best of all it was coming straight towards us.
Giant approaching.
Although looking to be moving slowly within a couple of seconds it was passing along side me, filling my lens unable to get enough distance I snapped away getting most of this giant in the shot.
That's pretty close.
At this point I thought it was about to swim off but it had no intention of going anywhere, in fact it seemed this big boy wanted to hang around and interact with us, playing with the bubbles from our scuba gear and swimming really close even nudging me gently on a couple of occasions. The rules of diving are look don't touch but if a beast of this size want to be touchy feely who are we to argue.
Circling back for more play time. 
Constantly so close to me I had to opt for some nice face shots.
Smile for the camera.
With limited air we knew this meeting would have to come to a end, after all we needed to meet up with our dive boat which had gone north expecting to pick us up there but these type of events are rare, so changing the dive plan was a must. We started to shallow up to conserve air as the deeper you are the quicker your air is consumed and guess who came up to the shallows with us, yes our new dive buddy looking great with the sun shining on it's face.
Getting a bit of sun.
In all the excitement I forgot I had also brought my gopro along, as it was time to leave I asked a friend to capture a bit of footage of me with the shark, who knows when a moment like this will come along again. That done we all had to make our way back to the boat, we had forty minutes with this gentle giant and it was hard to swim away but we can't breath under water so staying was not a option. Some events in life fade with time and photos help keep those memories alive but experiences like this stay with you forever. I'll finish off with a image of myself and the shark thanks to big Jim for shooting the gopro footage for me that this screenshot came from, it's one of those shots I couldn't have taken by myself.
Two big beasts getting to know each other.
All images captured by myself using a Canon EOS 60d with Tokina lens all kept safe inside a Ikelite housing additional lighting by way of two Ikelite strobes/flashes. Final shot is taken on a gopro.
Hope you all enjoyed this post, for me it took me back to a very special day, one I can but hope is repeated in the near future.
Special thanks to 
A quick foot note I changed the first image as I realized after posting I had used it before.