Swimming with Whalesharks in Holbox, Mexico

In August of 2010, we headed to Holbox, Mexico to (hopefully) swim with whalesharks.

Holbox, pronounced OL-bosh, is a small island off the coast of the North coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. The island is about 40k (26 miles) long, 1.5 kilometres (under a mile) wide, and has no paved roads.

Holbox is about a 2 hour drive from the Cancun airport to Chiquila, and then a 30 minute ferry. There are express buses and public ferries available, but our accommodation arranged private transfers for us (which was much faster). Yes, the boat was coincidentally named Jennifer.

We stayed at Hotel Casa Palapas del Sol, which is located on the beach a ways out of town. We had a a huge double-story palapa located right on the beach.

We were there for the whalesharks though, and ended up going out with a few different operators. The boats are fairly small, and you drive around for a while trying to find the whale sharks. Once spotted, the chaos begins. When the boat is in position and the captain gives you the signal, you jump into the water and swim as fast as you can. From above, the whale sharks seem to be gliding along slowly, but when you are in the water it takes every ounce of energy to keep them in sight.

I’m not sure if we just lucked out, but the sunsets in Holbox were out of this world.