Scuba Diving in Malapascua, Philippines

Beautiful Malapascua Beach

Adorable Beach Babies Everywhere

Heidi and Dive Master J.N.

Ornate Ghost Pipefish

Orangutan Crab

  If beautiful sand beaches, happy hours, friendly, laid back locals, and excellent diving are what you are after, then look no further than Malapascua Island in the Philippines. After flying into Cebu Int. Airport it is a three hour car ride to the tiny port of Maya. From there a 30 minute boat ride takes you across the normally calm channel and deposits you right on the beach in front of all the resorts. Each resort has its own bar, restaurant, and dive center. Heidi and I chose Ocean Vida since we had a package deal with Sea Explorer Divers already and that was the resort that houses that dive company.

Denise's Pygmy Sea Horse

 Malapascua has been a familiar name in the diving community because of its incredible macro wildlife. Sea horses, nudibranchs, sea snakes, and frogfish can be found here, especially on the nearby island dive spot called Gato Island. However, fairly recently Malapascua became world famous after discovering a submerged shoal where early in the morning thresher sharks appear to get cleaned by small wrasses. Thresher sharks are very rare to encounter in scuba diving depths since they are typically a deep ocean species. But here, at around 100ft deep, early in the morning you can see them on a regular basis.

Eel Nudibranch at Gato Island

Anemonefish: Like a Painting

   There is a big wreck dive called the Dona Marilyn, however it is relatively new, only about 20 years old, and has not yet attracted the loads of fish that I have seen on other wreck dives. I would even go so far as to tell people to skip this dive for more dives at Monad Shoal for the threshers. There is another submerged shoal called Kimud Shoal where hammerheads are sometimes spotted as well.

Nudibranchs galore!

   It seems that the big draw to Malapascua for divers these days are the thresher sharks, which I loved. Heidi and I are pretty die hard nudibranch fans though so during the day when the sharks are back in the deep we told our local guide and divemaster, J.N., that we wanted some macro life. I could tell he was excited because most divers only want to see the big stuff, which there is not much of other than the thresher sharks. But show us macro critters he did...

Rare Warty Frogfish

Still a few sea snakes at Gato Island

   Gato Island is only a short hop away. It is a beautiful rock covered in thick jungle and sea birds noisily flying on and off. It is also a local legend as the home of the sea snake. Thousands could be found here a century ago. Due to the soft yet sturdy nature of these marine reptiles, skin becoming all the rage in Europe plus their succulent meat being desired in China, hundreds of thousands of sea snakes were captured from this area. Now a sanctuary, the Gato Island sea snakes are making a comeback.

Find the shrimp!

One of my favorite angel fish ever

  Gato and another island day trip called Callangaman Island are must do dive trips from Malapascua. Both places held incredible macro life that I hadn't seen since Indonesia. Pygmy sea horses (including a rare Denise's Pygmy Sea Horse), anglefish, tiny shrimps and crabs, nudibranchs, and frogfish are there for the devoted searcher.

A brief moment captured: Mandarinfish Mating at sunset

   And if all of this wasn't enough, Mandarinfish can also be found here at Malapascua. We went out our first night to find them at a site called Lighthouse. It was just Heidi, me, and J.N. which was very lucky because the mandarinfish can be difficult to see and the encounters are so brief.

Frogfish

  After a few days of diving, happy hours, hanging out on the beach, and thresher sharks, Heidi and I decided that this was our kind of island. It reminds me a little of Caye Caulker, Belize because you could spend the entire stay in bare feet if you want. The sand is soft and white and the water is that tropical turquoise color you see in postcards. Overall Malapascua will be hard to beat on our Philippines tour, but we'll try.

Thresher Shark Dives at Monad Shoal, Malapascua

The long tail of a thresher shark

Almost bumping the camera this thresher gracefully glides off the reef getting cleaned by small fish in the dawn hours

Safety stop, Malapascua, Philippines