Diving with sharks? For all the time I’ve spent in the ocean, I had never had an up close encounter with a shark – at least not one that had jaws big enough to get the heart pumping – and I certainly didn’t plan to when I started my vacation in the Philippines.
But that all changed when I was invited to the small island of Malapascua by some new friends I had met on a boat trip from Coron to El Nido. I had never heard of Malapascua but while we were in El Nido one of them encouraged me to come as it was a place famous for scuba diving with Thresher Sharks.
For those not familiar, threshers are the sharks with the super-long tails. Sometimes called fox sharks, they live throughout the world’s oceans in temperate to warm water. The long tail is not just ornamental, it is used to whip and stun their prey. They can grow to be 20 feet long (6 meters).
In order to see them up close, I rearranged my travel plans and a few days later I was at a beautiful rental house that sat between two beaches on the side of the Malapascua away from the handful of dive resorts where most of the foreigners stayed. The rental, which is available on Air BnB, happened to be owned by Pilar Pilapil, who was named Miss Philippines in 1967 and later became a famous Filipino actress. She doesn’t live on Malapascua but visited the house one day and was extremely welcoming and helpful.
PADI REFRESHER COURSE
Since I hadn’t been diving for five years, I had to take a PADI refresher course my first day on the island. The next day I had to then do a deep-water adventure dive with a PADI instructor in order to obtain a certification to dive to the depth where the thresher sharks hang out. My basic PADI Open Water skill level allowed me to dive to 60 feet, or 18 meters. Now with the deep-water course under my belt, I could reach the 100-foot depth needed to see the sharks. One of the best parts is that these two courses along with the actual shark dive two days later, cost less than $150 US total. In the U.S., I believe because of steep insurance and instructor costs, this same package would have cost at least twice as much.
MONAD SHOAL
Seeing the thresher sharks in their natural environment was better than expected. I’ve never been so excited on a dive before and I literally had to remind myself to keep breathing. The threshers are sensitive to light so it was important to arrive at the dive site at sunrise. Yes, it was an early start. The dive site, called Monad Shoal, is an underwater table top that rises to about 40 feet underwater. Divers then drop over the edge and settle onto a narrow shelf at 95 feet. Behind us was a steep rock wall while in front of us was a drop-off into deep blue water.
SHARK DIVE
The sharks rise from the depths early in the morning to get parasites picked off by reef fish that live in these shallower waters. It didn’t take long for two to appear, swimming back and forth along this vertical underwater structure. The threshers wagged their distinctive long tails as they swam by, looking far more elegant than fearsome.
We remained in this position for about 20 minutes until we started to get low on air. As fortune would have it, our small group of five encountered another shark as we ascended. It was cruising on top of the shoal in shallower water, which allowed for a great view because of the better visibility and angle. Bonus!!
The incredible part about Malapascua and Monad Shoal is the frequency of shark sightings. They claim its the best place in the world to dive with thresher sharks because there are sightings on 75 to 90 percent of dives there. Talking to other divers, those percentages did not seem to be overstated.
MALAPASCUA ISLAND
As if anyone needs more adventure than diving with sharks, Malapascua offered it. The island is tiny at less than a square mile. It doesn’t have any roads, cars, or even tricycles. The only way to get around is to walk or on motorbike on the labyrinth of sandy paths. Navigating these narrow paths on a motorbike was a lot of fun. Even though it’s a small island, I got lost several times and had to backtrack on multiple occasions after hitting a dead end with locals staring at me wondering what the hell I was doing in their front yard.
SUNDAY COCKFIGHT
This was the place in the Philippines where I would attend a cockfight. In the big cities of Manila or Cebu, there are daily fights in arena venues. On Malapascua, the rooster fights only happen on Sunday, attracting a couple hundred mostly male enthusiasts to an outdoor ring made of wooden fences lined with barbed wire.
We watched about 10 duels. Being the first time I had ever witnessed a cockfight, I have to say it’s actually less gruesome than I had imagined. Sure there was blood, but I guess I had become desensitized after having seen a pig slaughtered up close just a week before. The main action occurred just before the roosters were dropped into the ring when bets were being placed. Everyone seemed to be yelling every which way for a minute or two and then the chickens were let go and the fight was underway. The average bout lasted about a minute to a minute and a half.
Needless to say, I left Malapascua thinking it was a pretty exciting place.
