Tefas - Malapascua ~ Philippines

Malapascua ~ Philippines

Malapascua island is an island north of Cebu and a very popular one because of its amazing dive sites. Malapascua for divers could be compared to Argentina for meat lovers, you don't go there if you don't want to dive, kind of. The island is also on the must-do-list in the Philippines and because of this I was expecting a lot of tourism here, but really, that wasn't the case. Malapascua became some kind of paradise for me where I could just relax and dive and meet great people and eat good food. The tricky part is getting there though. Since it's an island you have to take a boat to get there (logic right?) which means you have to start travelling from Cebu city early in the morning to reach the port in time before the boat schedule is done for the day.

The bus ride started at 12.45 AM and we thought this was perfect since the ride was going to take us 5.5 hours which made the connection great and easy to catch the first boat going to Malapascua in the morning. A problem though, there was no traffic at all. The journey didn't even take us 4 hours and when we arrived the Maya port we got told that the first bus leaves at 7 not 6. So, we had a few hours to kill. I spooned my bag and slept the remaining hours on the stone wall and Mollie did her crosswords. Just before seven I woke up, feeling the sun in my face.

At seven we managed to take the boat and after a pretty quick walk we arrived to our hostel which is a big resort with its own dive centre, pool, restaurant and beach and with hotelrooms (for fancy people) but also dorms (for people like us). This is a dream for two backpackers that enjoy a bit of luxury but can't afford staying in other rooms than dorms. Thresher cove is the name of the place and I recommend it so badly. We pay less then 6 dollars a night and everything is just fantastic here. So, when we arrived I decided to start my Advanced open water diver course through the hostel.

Two hours later I started my course by doing a navigation dive just to learn how to handle a compass and navigate during a dive, nothing special really but good knowledge. After this dive I got back, had lunch and headed off to the sunset/night dive.

The night dive was really cool but also kind of scary and claustrophobic since it's so dark and we were too many groups diving at the same place at the same time. It was pitch black down there so everytime I lost my instructor I thought mister Death was crawling up next to me.

The beach of the hostel/resort isn't too great but just the white beach and the calmness makes you want to lay down and just listen to the waves. So, this we did and ended up taking a nap there.

The day after though (!!!!) it was time to do my first deep dive, which was on a 30 meters depth to see the Thresher sharks. I brought my instructor and buddy and went down to the bottom.

AND then I almost peed in my pants (wetsuit). The sharks were so close to us!!! Really, right there. If something is surreal in this life it's meeting a shark for the first time. Go to Malapascua and do this. You will never regret it.

Our last day in Malapascua I had two more dives to do before my certification was done so we were 5 persons from the hostel that packed our bags and went out on the stormy sea to dive around Gato island, it's caves and to see the amazing marine life. This island is one of the most famous dive sites around Malapascua and yes, it was really cool.

We went through the cave where it was pitch black, but with our flashlights we could manage to see whitetip sharks, sea snakes, sea horses and so many other amazing things.

And then I went back to class to do my last test which was controlling my buoyancy.

After two dives we were done and finally, after two rainy days, the sun got out from the clouds. When I got back to the hostel I packed my bag in turbo speed and then we catched the last boat going to cebu island to get a van to cebu city and then take a flight to Puerto Princesa, on the island of Palawan.

Right now I'm sitting on the airport with 12 hours of waiting in front of me. It felt like a waste of money to pay for a hostel so we´re sleeping at the airport tonight, eating sweet bananas and wasting our bateries on wifi.

Ida