Christmas on Malapascua Island

This Christmas I had some time off and I wanted to spend it on a dive trip. Brook had to work, so I thought this would be a good time to go. To be honest, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone involved in a relationship, which I will explain later.

At one of these social networking events, I met a diving enthusiast who had mentioned he had lived in the Philippines for over 5 years, and had logged over 700 dives. After going out with him a few more times, we both thought it would be a good idea to go on a trip to Philippines during Christmas.

Now I had heard a lot about Puerto Galera, and I would have loved to go there, but this guy had gone there probably 100 times or so, and so he wanted to go somewhere different. He had been to Malapascua Island before, but it had been awhile.

For those of you who aren't diving buffs, or are not familiar with this island, it is THE place to see Pelagic Thresher sharks. These sharks have a long distinctive tail that can be as long as the length of the body. It is thought that these sharks use these long tails to whip and stun their prey.

These sharks live in the deep water down to depths of 500 m below the surface. So unless you are in a submersible submarine and have a sixth sense for spotting one of these babies in the deep blue, you probably aren't going to randomly run into a thresher shark. See some information about these sharks below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelagic_thresher

On Malapascua Island, there is a famous dive site, called Monad Shoal, where you can see these sharks as they come up to shallower waters for a cleaning. Monad is the site of an underwater island, at about 18 meters. It is surrounded by deep water, and it is this island at which you can see these magnificent sharks.

The catch is that you have to get up REAL early at 5 am to catch a glimpse of these sharks! This isn't a drift dive or heavy current dive, but more like a "safari". From the boat, you drop down to the bottom of the shoal and wait motionless while you keep an eye out for the threshers to come up for a cleaning. For the three days that I did this, I saw a thresher each time! They commonly swirl around a couple of times looking for wrasse to clean the parasites off their bodies. Occasionally, manta rays will swim around at the same spot as well.

On one dive, I saw a ray gracefully swim by, and then plunge down into the abyss. Both the threshers and the rays were a spectacular site not to miss!

See the link on the website below about a researcher's experience.

http://www.blueworldtv.com/video_html/
6_thresher_sharks.htm

Other than seeing the threshers, Malapascua is not much more. There are a few bars and one really good restaurant, but the rest of the place is pretty quiet. The resorts are really nice as well, but not all of them have 24 hour power. They only run on 12 - 16 hours so you can turn on the AC in the room and get a warm shower.

There are no ATMs on the island, and credit cards are not generally accepted -- even at the hotels.

As I said before, I did not go with Brook on this trip because she had to work. I had thought this would not be a big deal as Brook is not a big fan of diving, and had she gone, might have been bored anyway. However, I didn't actually enjoy the trip all that much since she was not with me, and also, because this guy I went diving with turned out to be a cold person and uninterested in talking with me most of the time. He also decided to make all the decisions, and I quickly realized that this guy was not my friend. He only seemed to have half a personality when he had a beer in his hand and was with his girlfriend, who also came with us. Luckily, we stayed in separate rooms.

I began to miss Brook almost right away, especially on the first day, considering we arrived at 2 am on the island and I only got 2 hours of sleep before a full day of diving. I was a mess on that first day. That night I went to bed at 9:30 pm, so the next day at 5 am I was feeling better. On the fourth day, however, I was a little hungover, and then got really sea sick on the boat. I had decided to take a diving day trip, and the 1 and 1/2 hours on the boat felt like a day. I was so happy to get off the boat in the afternoon only to puke my guts out back at the dive shop.

My stomach began to feel better, but I started to get the chills, achy, weak, etc. And this day was Christmas. Some day. I had to clean my equipment and take it back to the resort, which was a good 10 minutes by motorcycle. By the time I got back to the resort, it was already 8 pm and I was ready to pass out. I took a shower, had a little soup, and then got a massage in my room. That night, I didn't go anywhere, but laid in bed with the chills and just slept.

The next day we went back to Taipei, but it wasn't until a week later that I fully recovered from that trip. Oh, and it's already been a week since I talked to that guy. I guess the feeling was mutual. The moral of the story? Don't go on vacation trips with strangers!

Take a look at the photos below.

http://toddbrook.shutterfly.com/action/?a=8Bat2TJy5Zsew&notag=1