You most likely have already heard about Malapascua.
Not without a reason.
It is one of the best places in the world to encounter the amazing Thresher Shark.
Malapascua is a small island, located at the very north of Cebu island in the Central Visayas, Philippines.
The place to go : Monad Shoal
What a pleasure to wake up at 4 am...
...knowing in one hour you will be in great company of those beautiful sharks, after an amazing sunrise during the boat ride to Monad Shoal.
The thresher shark's big eyes are very sensitive to light. Therefore, they are rarely seen during daytime in shallow waters.
No, they do live and spend most of their time in deep, dark waters.
But, during night they do come shallower. That's why, almost every early morning, we can find them on the famous cleaning stations of Monad Shoal where they get daily showered by really hungry cleaner fish.
Check out our THRESHER SHARK blog for more information about those special sharks.
The thresher shark is incredibly gorgeous and graceful
They look very friendly with their big, black eyes.
If you are not moving and breathing very slowly, the thresher shark might comes closer to you.
We have had some WONDERful encounters with very curious sharks who came so close, it seemed they were observing us the same way as we observed them.
You need to be totally calm, no fast movements, no big bubbles because they are very shy and easily scarred. We are a noisy, bubble blowing "quadropus" for the sharks.
Some whitetip reef sharks, bluefin jackfish and spotted eagle rays are as well passing by.
Diving Tips
As most of the cleaning stations are below 25 meters, we highly recommend the use of Nitrox.
The reef top is not really interesting - anymore. Sadly it has been destroyed a lot.
We have seen the reef of Monad shoal over the past 6 years and it is shocking how the corals disappear year after year.
Some parts because of Typhoons passing by. But also due to a large amount of daily divers, kneeling on the ground without taking any care where they sit.
If you go there, please do not behave the same way! We are the visitors underwater.
Have you ever seen a fish sitting like a potato on the ground or walking around on corals?
No, they swim and we should do the same when we enter in their element!
As this dive site is pretty deep, only Advanced Divers are allowed.
Unfortunately not all of them are really so advanced. You should be able to hover motionless, without touching the ground when going there.
If you can not, please only sit in the sandy areas where all the corals are already gone and avoid destroy even more.
The cleaner fish need corals. Without them, there will be one day no more thresher shark taking its morning bath.
Therefore it is in everybody's interest to protect this little underwater paradise. We recall that this is the only known place to encounter those sharks almost every day.
Apart from this, we really do need corals. They are the earth's lungs and with it also ours!
2 Responses
Manuela Barmettler
Hallo ihr Lieben. Es ist so wunderschön, eure Texte zu lesen. Tolle Infos und auch Inputs wie sich zu verhalten unter Wasser. Danke sehr. Von Herzen wünsche ich euch noch viele schöne Erlebnisse und freue mich sehr weiters hier zu entdecken.
BLUE wonders
Halli Hallo 🙂 Danke für den lieben Kommentar, so schön! Wir freuen uns sehr darauf, weitere Traumplätzchen zu entdecken. Mehr davon kommt bald… 🙂 Wir schicken viel Sonnenschein