Scuba Diving on Malapascua Island: The Essential Guide
Malapascua Island is best known as a scuba diving island. It offers some of the world’s most highly rated dive sites along with some incredibly rare and hard to find animals, including the ever popular thresher shark. Scuba diving on Malapascua Island offers something for every diver from vibrant reefs to stunning ship wrecks, and numerous rare types of sharks.
Let’s take a look at what you need to know to dive on Malapascua Island.
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5 Top Reasons to Scuba Dive on Malapascua Island
Malapascua is best known for its scuba diving, so you will find many tourists on the island are divers. So what makes Malapascua a great dive location?
1. Rare Thresher Sharks & Abundant Marine Life
Thresher sharks are a special treat in that they have an unusually long tail (caudal fin) that they use to hunt their prey. They are also known for jumping completely out of the water during their hunting.
Scuba diving with thresher sharks is considered relatively safe as they post little to no threat to humans. As with any wild animal, you will want to keep your distance and stay out of the way of their giant tail.
In addition to thresher sharks, you can spot manta rays which are most common in the winter and spring, and potentially hammerhead sharks between December and April.
2. Affordable Prices
Diving in the Philippines is very reasonable, some might even say cheap. At Thresher Cove Dive Resort it was just 1200 PHP per dive + tax or about $25 USD.
Learn more about budgeting for your trip in the Philippines.
3. Year Round Scuba Diving
No matter what time of year you are headed to the Philippines, you can count on some great diving! Diving in Malapascua is possible year round with the very best time to dive being in the spring.
4. Great Visibility
The water visibility around Malapascua Island remains between 15 – 30 m throughout most of the year. However between November and January the seas can be rougher and there the plankton density increases which can reduce the visibility to only 5 – 10 m. The best visibility is typically found between June and September.
5. Pleasant Water Temperatures
The water temperature remains pleasant year round. It is typically between 27 – 30 degrees Celsius, but can be cooler in the winter. December to February it may be closer to 25 degrees.
Dive Centers on Malapascua Island
Being a popular dive island, there is no shortage of dive centers available on Malapascua Island. You’ll find over a dozen operators but as with any diving, you’ll want to verify their standards are up to par. I recommend doing some research before you arrive on the island to include reading up on the dive centers and their reviews.
If you don’t have a chance to target a dive center before you arrive on the island, you can ask around to determine which dive centers fellow divers recommend. Or you can simply walk into a dive center and start asking questions. All dive centers will be able to provide the needed equipment, so no need to carry yours all the way there.
Scuba Diving with Thresher Cove Dive Resort
I personally dove with, and stayed at, Thresher Cove Dive Resort. They were very professional and made diving simple. As it had been about a year since my last dive, the staff questioned me and verified my qualifications, fitted me for my gear, and I was ready to dive.
The Thresher Cove dive boat is a 26 person outrigger boat with crates for each persons’ dive gear, free water, coffee, and tea, and a small open air toilet. During low tide you have to take a small flat boat out to the outrigger and back in.
Their dive masters are well-trained and equipment is up-kept and transferred and put together by the crew. It really was low effort to dive with them.
As your dives will take all day, you will want to take a lunch with you. You can bring one prepackaged from the restaurant at Thresher Cove (the easiest option) or you can pick up one from somewhere else.
No matter how many dives you have in your log book, you should always make sure your travel insurance covers you for diving. I recommend leveraging the Explorer Plan that World Nomad’s offers.
Most Popular Dive Sites Around Malapascua Island
With a couple dozen fantastic dive sites nearby, it’s not likely you’ll run out of great options to explore while scuba diving on Malapascua Island.
Gato Island
Gato Island is about 45 minutes away from Malapascua Island and is part of a marine reserve. As such, you’ll find fabulous coral reefs and plenty of wildlife around the island.
Depth: 10 – 25 meters depending on the site
Recommended Certification: Open Water or Advanced
My First Dive at Gato Island: Gato Island Cave
We left Thresher Cove Dive Resort at 9am to head out to Gato Island. The first dive took us down to about 22m where we saw a number of creatures: squat shrimp, cuttle fish, demon stinger, sea snake, squid eggs and more.
One of the features of this site is a 30m “cave”, or tunnel, at 10m deep that you can swim through. Unfortunately, there was a strong current and the seas were too rough for us to actually dive through the cave.
My Second Dive at Gato Island: Gato Island South Wall
During the surface interval we were able to snorkel and swim a bit along the surface before our second dive of the day.
Then the second dive took us down to 20m along the South Wall. We shad sightings of a blue spotted stingray, cuttle fish, sea snake, flabelina, frog fish, and a white tipped reef shark.
Unfortunately, due to not owning an underwater camera at that point, I have no photos.
Monad Shoal
This dive site is the most likely place to see thresher sharks in the world! Depending who you dive with, you may end up kneeling waiting for the thresher sharks or you may end up swimming around in search of them.
Depth: 30m
Recommended Certification: Advanced
If you do not have your advanced certification, you can complete the Deep Adventure Dive Course to be eligible for this deep dive site.
Diving Monad Shoal in Search of Thresher Sharks
The thresher shark dives take place in the wee hours of the morning. We set off at 5:00 am and it was incredible how fast the sun rose. From the time we got on the small flat boat to the time we crossed over to the outrigger, it had gone from dark to daylight.
Getting to Monad Shoal the seas were quite rough and the ride was quiet as everyone was still half asleep, but come dive time everyone was ready to go.
Thresher sharks are identified by their extremely long tail they use to knock their prey unconscious. They usually are found around 30m deep, but since you use air faster the deeper you are, our dive plan was to linger around 20m until we spotted a shark.
The day before our dive, they did not see any thresher sharks. But, it must have been our lucky day as within the first 10 min. we saw a white tipped reef shark and a small thresher shark. The middle of the dive we waited around and no sharks came, but as it was nearing time to start our ascent, we found three more sharks, two of which stayed in the area circling so we could get a solid look. It really is shocking how long their tails are! It actually makes them kind of goofy looking.
Other than thresher sharks, there is not much to see at Monad Shoal. There is no real coral or other fish, but we did see an eagle ray!
Lighthouse
Best known for being able to witness the mating ritual of mandarin fish, Lighthouse is typically a dive kept for dusk or nighttime. This is when you can see the unique mating dance of the mandarin fish.
Depth: 10m
Recommended Certification: Open Water
Kalanggaman Island
About 90 minutes from Malapascua Island, Kalanggaman Island is a perfect tropical island. It has just a few palm trees sticking out of the white sand surrounded by crystal clear water. You’ll find amazing wall diving here which features an abundance of wild life.
Depth: 5 – 40m
Recommended Certification: Open Water
Lapus Lapus
Offering some of the best coral around Malapascua, Lapus Lapus is a dive site that always impresses. You’ll find a large variety of soft and hard coral as well as abundant marine life.
Depth: 15 – 18m
Recommended Certification: Open Water
Learn More About Malapascua Island
If you’re headed to go scuba diving on Malapascua Island, you’ll be delighted to hear that this area in the Philippines features a lot of other great experiences.
1. Explore Malapascua Island and get to know the locals.
2. Take a day trip to Virgin Island.
3. Spend time on neighboring Bantayan Island.
Learn more about the Philippines before you go, with these 14 Travel Tips for the Philippines.
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