Three planes, an overnight stay in Cebu, two buses, a boat, 36 hours and a very excited group of divers from Snorkel Safari arrived early afternoon and got straight into diving on the amazingly beautiful picture postcard island of Malapascua, Philippines.
The days began at the dive shop at 5.15am to head out to see the Thresher sharks. Threshers grow up to a length of 5-6 meters, about a third of which is the huge scythe-like tail and they usually hang out in the deep waters, so they are only usually found in the early mornings for their daily showers at the cleaning stations on the edge of 200 meter plus drop-offs. For what was originally booked as 14 dives, we ended up doing 20(ish) dives with 3-4 dives each day with most people enjoying the Filipino traditions of kumain (eating) and siesta (sleeping) after and between most dives.
We had a fantastic group of divers that certainly made the trip that much more enjoyable and entertaining and the dive crew, the bar and restaurant staff were fantastic and so helpful, knowing us by name after the first day, helping us in any and every way, and making sure we had an amazing trip.
After sadly leaving the island we did the boat, bus and plane thing back to Manila where we had two nights with Mig and his cousins showing us around some of the local sights and shopping! A big thanks to Mig for organising this (and looking after us on the rest of the trip) and to his cousins, Nina and Len, in particular for being our own personal tour guides and looking after us in Manila.
