Malapasqua

It was a long bus drive before I made it to the northern tip of cebu island, a tiny little harbor town called Maya, where I got on a boat that would ferry me to my final destination, Malapasqua island and ultimately the thresher sharks. In Maya and on Malapasqua I experienced for the first time people trying to hustle me, not just sell me some stuff I didn't need but actually lying to my face telling me the boat would not be leaving for hours and I needed to buy their special boat or people grapping your luggage and passing it from hand to hand and then charging you money for each guy that touched it.. I really don't like to write something bad about the Philipines but these people just gave everybody else a bad reputation. I managed to navigate through this with the help of some honest locals, but I ended up on the boat next to a couple that had paid 4 times more than me and we were on the same boat!!

But with that little hickup put aside I really enjoyed my time on Malapascua! The weather was basically overcast the whole  time, it was breasy and the temperature about 5 degress lower than anywhere else I had been.. I loved it!! 

Sunset behind the rain clouds gave me a beautifull welcome to Malapasqua

I went straight to my recommended dive shop, Thresher Shark Divers and again I experienced that camaraderie between divers, where you are immediately welcomed by everyone hanging out in the dive shop bar straight on the beach. 

To go diving with the sharks I needed to start up my PADI open water advanced course, where you complete 5 different so called adventure dives that each certify you to do different things your normal open water certificate will not allow you to do. For this I needed the deep dive class as we would be going down to 30 meters depth to see the sharks at the so called cleaning station where they come early in the morning to get a beauty scrub by the little fish there after having fed all night at depths of 200 meters. 

I got paired up with my instructor Jesus from Spain and his young padowan Victor from the Netherlands. I was told to read up on a specific chapter and be ready for a review at 4.30 next morning before going out to see the sharks. So I leaned back with a mangoshake and started on my homework

Study time at Bounty beach, Malapasqua

My accomadation was 1 min walk from the beach and the dive shop so I was up at 4.15 walking out into the dark night, out on the water I could see the fleet of dive boats starting to gear up, lights on and I couldn't help but feel a little bit of excitement as the wind was kicking up causing the sea to be a little rough. Knowledge review was completed together with my diving buddy Gordon and we were now ready for the deep dive.

We steamed out into the darkness, maybe 10 diving boats from different companies creating a line formation, the waves crashing at the keel of the boat causing sprays of salt water and making me regret not having one of those cool waterproof diving bags.. This was definently something different than the quiet reef dives I had made before, as we jumped into the high waves and quickly went down the anchor chain to get out of the worst current. On this dive I was using a dive computer for the first time as it was part of the deep dive curriculum, unfortunately it had been put on a altitude setting making it believe I was diving in some alpine mountain lake. This caused it to immediately show an available bottom time that was much lower than everybody else's computer. This was obviously an error, but it being a course we had to go by the computer so after only 15 min we had to ascent a little having only seen one shark in the distance, but while we ascentet up towards a platou suddenly this fellow came cruising by at about 3-5 meters distance and slightly above us so as to be in a siluette against the light. Now in the clip it might seem far away, but the camera films with a very wide angle making things look distant, trust me this guy was close!

Coming up from the dive we practiced using a drop tank, hanging 5 meters below the boat to provide air for our safety stop. The sea was so rough now that I simply hugged the tank with arms and legs while I was thrown about beneath the boat. Quite interesting and funny :) We were back on the island at 7 just in time for breakfast! 

The rest of the day I spend doing another  soft coral dive and also studying for a night time adventure dive. Again I was with Jesus and Victor, while we prepped for the night dive practising compas navigation, hand and torch signals in the dark. Night diving was definently an experience I enjoyed! We went out to see the mating of the mandarin fish that happens just as dusk sets in, but they werent in the mood this night.. But luckily there was plenty of other stuff to see in the darkness, like sea horses, little octopuses, crabs walking about in their shells and most interesting bioluminescence that makes the water sparkle and twinkle around you when you move so its feels like your swimming in pixie dust! Sometimes just ascenting a few meters and having a look around in the darkness at all the other divers, torches and flash cameras is impressive in itself making it look like some scene from a space movie or something!

The next couple of days went with the same rutine of getting up very early to swim with the sharks and my new diving buddy Laura from Germany, then breakfast and a nap before going out diving and again at night. When I left Malapasqua I was now up to 21 dives in about 2,5 weeks. 

The last day on the island I spend relaxing as I should not be diving 24 hours before flying to Manila. Well my idea of relaxing was to jog around the island saying hi to the local kids and sweating a lot. Leaving the confines of bounty beach and heading to the north part of the island I got the real picture of how super typhoon Yolanda had impacted this island. Now the average Phillipine village might look like it was hit by a typhoon just the day before but this was different. Still among the destruction there were beautifull places, people seemed happy especially the kids, always waving saying hello or high fiving you as you ran around. 

Then at one point I spotted these guys and I couldn't help myself..

Getting up early to catch the first ferry back to Cebu island at 6.30, the weather seemed to clear up giving me a glimpse of this little paradise island when its not overcast

Ahead of me lies about 24 hours of travel first down to Cebu City to catch a plane up to Manila, then a 12 hour bus up to the region of Luzon to see the second so called 8th wonder of the world of my trip,the rice terraces of Sagata and Banaue...