Malapascua – add me to the frequent visitor program, please.

It was Heraclitus who said that a man never enters the same river twice. I’m quite sure Heraclitus was not an avid diver but I would say that he was spot on when it comes to dive sites!

Malapascua actually means “bad Easter” in Spanish and “bad Christmas” in Cebuano (they got a lot of things wrong in Cebu, didn’t they? Don’t get me started on the Santo Niño…) but my first visit was on Easter 2013 and was it an Easter well spent! At the time, I was a much less experienced diver and my camera was more modest. I had a Canon G1X bought one year before as a needed upgrade from a camera that barely snapped any pictures underwater. Just days before the trip, Jackie gave me an INON diopter and I could never have guessed the good use I would put it to on this trip.

So there I went. I knew basically nothing about Malapascua. I arrived just in time for the night dive and we went to the “lighthouse” where I would see mating Mandarin fish. I arrived there and I actually did catch a photo or two of these naughty romantic guys who mate every single night! But it was crowded and my camera was struggling without proper focus light (red light is used on these dives to avoid scaring off the fish).

 

(naughty naughty!)

The next morning, there I went for the famous Thresher shark dive. I didn’t know what to expect but I woke up at 4:30 am and brought my camera. I was told divers are forbidden from using the flash, which was not a let down for me at the time since I really hadn’t figured out how to use strobes properly anyway. I was more into underwater scenery photos and I only had one strobe so most of my photos were taken with natural light. We dove down to around 25m and held on to a rope where we were supposed to stay in order to see the sharks that came around that time to be cleaned by smaller fish. I would say that there were from fifty to a hundred divers there and it looked more like a rock concert than anything else. Visibility was great and the sharks came but they stayed quite far from us and then after maybe 30 minutes I decided it was time to reposition myself and it was a wise decision. On the previous spot, I was catching a lot of bubbles from other divers on my frame so I went to the rightmost edge of the rope, hoping the sharks would go even further right so I could get a clean shot and I was lucky enough that it happened just as I had planned!

That was my best underwater photo until that day. I couldn’t stop looking at it for the next few months days. One might say that Malapascua pushed me over the edge to get a new camera in order to improve my photos.

(that’s a much better picture of the thresher shark. I think this may be only guy who looks better from behind in underwater photography)

Jackie didn’t go with me on that trip so we were trying to find an opportunity to go back to the island as soon as we had enough time. So as we examined the calendar this year, we decided that we couldn’t wait any longer and we would give it a go on a long public holiday in October. Malapascua had been hit by a typhoon in November 2013 but I was assured it had not compromised the dive sites.

The arrival in Malapascua was very similar; we got there just in time to go on the night dive. It was a beautiful dive and we had a fantastic time, BUT I BARELY RECOGNIZED THE DIVESITE! The same thing happened on the other dives, including on Monad Shoal (the thresher dive), which I clearly recognized, but I “understood” it much better this time. I think this might be explained by the fact that there were almost no divers on the sites, by my better understanding of underwater life and mostly my improved ability as a photographer and a diver. If in Tubbataha and Anilao I noticed that having my own equipment and taking the deep diving specialty course (and feedback) improved my gas consumption, this time around I thought my improved awareness changed my perception of dive sites completely. (Unfortunately, jelly fish also improved their awareness of me and I got stung several times!)

Overall, Malapascua proved to be a great place and I would will return many times. It’s easy to get there from Hong Kong, the team at Exotic divers/resort is great, accommodations are very comfortable and even the food is beyond anyone’s expectations.

Finally, when Heraclitus said that thing about the man and the dive sites (am I narcosed?) he was trying to say that the dive site is always different, but also that the man is also different every time he does that giant leap or back roll into the site. I wouldn’t argue otherwise.

 

ps.: you can see all the pictures here http://www.divephotoblog.com/malapascua-2014-new/