Malapascua Advanced Underwater Adventures

It was dark and late, still raining. We were soaked, hungry and tired and had no place to sleep. Definitely all the great honeymoon vibes in the air as you can imagine. But at the same time we were super happy! We were finally there, on the small paradise island of Malapascua.

After a bit of searching we found us a great little cozy and not too expensive home for the upcoming days. Or weeks if we wanted, we had no schedule. Mike and Diose’s Aabana guest house was nicely next to the beach but a bit further from the main beach scene. After a dinner at a cheep but good restaurant Ging Ging’s we were happy to rest.

Next day was devoted to no plans nor activities unless we really felt like it. Sun came out and the island showed us its beautiful white beaches and those clear blue waters we’d been craving for. We walked around, got some quotes on diving from different scuba schools and thought about snorkelling later on.

Perfect place for some hangs at Aabana

It's important to share same interests with your loved one

Oh that white sand

And the perfect water - finally

Malapascua’s definite main attraction is diving - especially to see its incredibly beautiful thresher sharks! There’s much more than sharks of course: Gato island has fantastic coral reefs with nudibranchs of all sorts, seahorses and white tip reef sharks among other things.

It had been a while since we had last been diving. Three years to be exact. So a refresher course was in order. Also, Chris had not done the advanced course and technically wasn’t allowed to fun dive deeper than 18m. The sharks would be at around 22m and to be able to dive there Chris would have to pay extra for an “adventure dive”. It all seemed quite silly. And expensive of course. Then Chris said it out loud: maybe he should just do the advanced course and get it over and done with!

We suggested this great new idea to the extremely nice and sympathetic diver/restaurant manager of Evolution dive center, Alex, who said “of course!” and together we came up with a perfect plan. The advanced course includes five dives which all focus on different speciality (night dive, deep dive, navigation, dive computer and fish recognition for example). We would start with an easy dive, do a few skills as a refresher, then Chris would do the mandatory navigation skills part and the rest of the dive we’d just enjoy the marine life.
Same evening we’d go on a night dive, then next day we’d start with the deep dive (with the sharks) and lastly we’d have two dives at Gato where Chris would do fish recognition and dive computer stuff to finish off the course.

The course also includes a bit of theory before each dive but there are no exams really. The other good part of this idea was that I wouldn’t have to do a refresher separately but I could join in all the dives as fun dives. And get a little refresher on the advanced course in the meanwhile ;) We had a plan!

On our “activity free” first day we still found ourselves going on a three hour snorkelling tour around the island. There were a few good spots, reachable even from the shore but they were a bit of a walk away so we hopped on a bangka boat instead. The corals were quite dead and first I thought our boatman took us to a wrong place. But indeed there was some life there despite the broken corals: beautiful colorful fish, seahorse looking pipefish and a massive sea snake (which I later learned was called a banded sea krait, very venomous but not quite equipped to bite through human skin. At least I hope the latter part is true). Last snorkelling happened by a Japanese shipwreck which by itself wasn’t super impressive but the little brown-yellow-bunny looking nudibranch was so cute that it made my day!

Snorkel time!

Oh that T-shirt tan

Some jellyfish around o_O

Despite dogs, roosters and noisy hotel staff we slept well. Our porch was made for hangboarding and it’s always a perfect way to start the day. Afterwards a good breakfast was welcome and then it was already go time: diving!

The first dive after a long break is most likely pretty shit. This time was no exception: the mask fogged up ALL the time, I felt claustrophobic because I couldn’t see and breathing through the regulator felt weird, buoyancy was off because I didn’t have enough weights etc. But I was psyched anyway, so happy to be diving again! And after mastering the few skills needed I just enjoyed the surroundings (despite having to clean my mask the whole time). The single coolest creature we saw was a humongous cuttle fish that Chris spotted! It was just levitating still next to the bottom, eyeballing us with its massive peepers. Nice! Chris managed to pass his navigation part with dignity. 1/5 done.

Night dives are fantastic. I remember loving the one on my course so I was excited about this one too. Chris wasn’t quite as excited but in the end he shared my enthusiasm! The things you see and the atmosphere in the pitch black water is quite something.

Alex wanted to show us something special as the thing first but he wouldn’t spill the beans beforehand. When we descended, we saw the lights of other divers below us in a ring formation. Red lights of a massive underwater camera were pointing in the middle and everyone was dead still. Clumsy us tried our best not to disturb but still to see the tiny creatures above the corals. Two small things were shyly waving and moving up and down in front of us. It was hard to see because no torch was directly pointed at them but when the two little fish made their way a bit higher, someone showed the light and we could see two beautiful and fragile looking mandarin fish waving their scarf like fins and dancing around each other until they plunged down again in the shadows. Wow. Mandarin fish mating, definitely a cool sight.

We saw many more things: a squid that squirted its ink at us, a huge spider crab that looked like it escaped from a Pirates of the Caribbean movie and cool hermit crabs with the most peculiar houses. The grandiose lion fish were not a rare sight, a huge filefish filefish swam past us and I managed to spot a well-hidden and scary looking scorpionfish. 2/5 dives done and 5/5 rating for this. No foggy mask, no phobias, just pure fun.

Sunset

Time to suit up

Frog woman

Happy Malapascua divers

Local supermarket

One hungry diver

mmm veggies

We had seen a beautiful sunset on our way to the night dive and in the next morning we saw the fire ball rising: our shark dive was scheduled to leave quite early, at 5.00. Thresher sharks are a pretty funky looking shark species with their big round eyes but especially because of their looong cat like tail! Usually they arrive early morning to the same spot next to a deep wall for their morning wash: they are being tidied up by the cleanerfish.

We had another mission first, before the sharks: to go down to around 30m for Chris’ deep dive. The water was extremely clear and visibility awesome when we started to descend. One could see all the way down. And then suddenly, just a few minutes after starting the descent, the first thresher shark appeared from the shadows!!! Whoa. We weren’t even looking for them yet. It circled around and vanished again. Amazing.

We checked the dive computer, it showed us 28,5m after which we slowly ascended to 22m and found our way to the cleaning stations where there were already a few other divers waiting to spot those sharks. And sharks there were! It was an impressive sight to see them appear from the distance, swim past swinging the long tails and with the cleanerfish on the sides. Then they would disappear again in the blue darkness. 3/5 done. 5/5 stars.

Briefing for shark dive

Anticipation in the air

Early morning Chris

Sharks are somewhere in the back

Extrahappy sharkspotters

                                               Video borrowed from Evolution

In the afternoon we left to do the last two dives in Gato island which was famous for its beautiful corals and plentiful nudibranchs and other little things. Also white tipped reef sharks were common visitors in these waters as well as frogfish, seahorses and other cool critters.

Indeed we saw some pretty nice things. Firstly the whole area was like a big beautiful garden with great colours and shapes, secondly the wildlife was so incredibly diverse: next to a big black seahorse I spotted a yellow baby seahorse (so cute!), we saw many many nudibranchs (blue-white-yellow ones and one black one with red stripes), a small moray eel peeking from its little cave, multibar pipefish, a big cuttlefish and multiple lionfish. I also created an eye for spotting those well-hidden scorpionfishes.

And since we had started the day with sharks, why not continue it with some more: the first white tip was sleeping in a cave and we could hardly see it, just the tail, but soon we encountered two more! They were hiding in a dark tunnel and we were diving past just at the right moment. A few other divers were coming from the other end of the tunnel and first we could only see glimpses of these two big white tips in the flashes from the divers’ torches. What a sight. The sharks didn’t like the idea of being trapped between us and the other divers so they fled - right past us! We stared in awe at the two sharks that were just a few meters away. Wow.

On the next dive we had a mission. Chris was supposed to find us a frogfish, stonefish and some special kind of nudibranch. Alex promised us a beer if the nudibranch would be a dragon one. It looks like something from a fantasy flick, really pretty but not so commonly seen.

A frogfish we found pretty quickly, a funny orange one, I think Alex had an idea where it would be hiding. We continued our search for the other stuff when suddenly Alex stopped us. Even without hearing or seeing his face hidden behind the mask I could feel the triumph in his gestures: a dragon nudibranch!! There it was, a lilac, delicate looking creature. Awesome!

I couldn’t have imagined more wonderful dives than these. Chris became a certified Advanced Open Water Diver and we saw what we came to see - and more. Malapascua is pretty amazing.

Lunch at Gato

But it was time to leave. Chris had developed a bit of an problem with his ear so no more diving for a while and we felt we could move on to new adventures. We said goodbye to Alex and our guesthouse and reversed our journey back to Cebu. This time we didn’t get wet nor did the bus take as long but it was still enough travelling for one day.

Hunting spider

Last hangs at the excellent spot

Bye bye Malapascua

We slept one night in a hostel called Elicon house where they told us not to walk one kilometer to a restaurant because it was too dangerous. How frustrating. So we took a cab and ate an excellent meal of Persian food for dinner. A great change for a while!

Next day we tried to find an ATM that would give us money but it wasn’t an easy task. We tried at least ten different ones before taking a taxi to HSBC which luckily worked. Then we left Cebu behind. With pleasure.