At risk of sounding like the whiner I am, I have shitty luck with weather and sights. For example, with all the spectacular scenery we ran into in Ecuador, for example, it rained like mad a lot of the time we were there, and no pink river dolphins or capibaras in sight. The same happened during our trip to Malapascua off the Philippine island of Cebu last weekend — rain, rain and more rain, with the exception of a few intervals; the sun came out the Monday of our departure.
Stop, back up — we headed out to Cebu on a fairly spontaneous trip from Singapore via Cebu Pacific Airways on Friday night, arriving at 4 a.m. on Saturday morning. A 3 hours car trip and half an hour by outrigger motor boat later (low tide and high waves meant we had to transfer to the boat via a tiny cockleshell of a dinghy from the dock in Maya) the three of us arrived at Malapascua, off the Cebu “mainland.”
The island is tiny; while we didn’t really go explore, we probably saw most of it just knocking around between bars in the evening. That said, we spent most of our time there either diving, knocking back beers or catching up on well-deserved rest. So much diving that we pretty much headed straight out with Thresher Shark Divers, owned by a bunch of friendly but canny Brits (whose motto should be “trust but verify”…)
My colleagues Martin & Hanno (very German weekend, this) are pretty experienced divers, leaving me the tyro of the bunch. Nonetheless, we went on 3 dives the first day, mainly checking out ok-ish coral fields (and my first night dive.) Unfortunately, the weather was horrid, with the drizzle that had started to plague us on the ride from Maya continuing to plague us during the day.
Malapascua (“bad easter”?) seems to be mainly populated by German and Swiss expats with a smattering of constantly giggling Pinoys running the various small bars and restaurants. Our hotel, the Sun Splash (organized by the dive shop) was cute enough, with an ample supply of greasy food and beer to keep us amused when we weren’t diving; the rooms are rudimentary but comfortable, although the salt water coming out of the taps were an amusing twist. Whatever, we weren’t there for a 5-star resort. The food, almost without exception, was brilliant — spicy, fresh and tasty. I especially recommend a small place along the main beach owned by an older Swiss guy, as well as the Kokay’s Maldito, a beautiful seafood restaurant a bit off the waterline. Ask for your food to be made extra spicy at the latter, though.
Unfortunately, our first dive adventure the next day turned out to be a disaster for me. We’d mainly come to see thresher and whale sharks; the weather precluded going out far enough for the latter, and when I finally managed to make my way into the incredibly choppy water for my first deep dive, I just couldn’t keep my breathing straight. It just gutted me, having to wait on the boat while the others were able to descend and hang out with pelagics, and I’m still annoyed about it. I consoled myself with the idea that I was actually more interested in manta rays than some dumb old sharks, and one of the kids working at the dive shop suggested I check out Costa Rica (Playa del Coco, specifically) for these. Seeing whale sharks would have been pretty damn cool, though. At least, the second dive was at a location called Lapus Lapus, one of the most spectacular coral beds I’ve ever seen (I haven’t seen many, but this was pretty nifty.)
All in all it’s a beautiful and relaxing place if you want simplicity and not too many tourists (and don’t mind hordes of teutonic underwater explorers trampling around.) I think I’ll return to the Philippines if it’s all like this.
