Thresher Shark Divers Malapascua

Location Based on Bounty Beach, Malapascua Island, just off the north tip of Cebu in the Philippines.

The diving season in Malapascua is year-round. However, during the typhoon season from July to December, inclement weather can occasionally cause rough surface conditions and reduced visibility. Diving is rarely stopped for longer than two days.

The world-famous thresher sharks of Malapascua are seen in the morning and are 99% guaranteed every day, enjoying their morning clean at stations along Kimud Shoal. Their daily routine is so predictable that divers descend to the shoal at 12-22 meters and simply wait for the sharks to turn up.

[Read more: Malapascua Dive Travel Guide]

Water Temperatures: 75-79°F (24-26°C) in January and February, 82-86°F (28-30°C) the rest of the year.

Thresher Shark Divers is located on Malapascua's main beach and can book accommodation at most of the resorts on the island. Check out some of their trusted resorts below!

Blanco Resort

Blanco Resort is a family-owned boutique resort offering modern deluxe rooms with stunning sea views. Located just a five-minute walk from Thresher Shark Divers, the resort also features a private beach adjacent to Tepanee’s blacktip snorkelling area.

Room types:

• Deluxe Roo
• Family Room

Blue Coral Resort 

Room types: 

• Deluxe AC
• Junior AC
• Garden View AC
• Standard Suite Fan
• Standard Suite Fan (no balcony)
• Garden View Fan

Cocobana Beach Resort

Room types:

• Superior 
• Beach Bungalow
• 2nd Row Bungalow
• Deluxe Room
• Family Super Deluxe

Hippocampus Resort

Hippocampus Resort offers a comfortable retreat after a day of diving, featuring AC-equipped rooms in Standard, Superior, and Deluxe categories. With a prime beachfront location and high demand, advance booking is recommended.

Blanco Resort

Italian boutique resort on a small cliff, 3-5 minutes from TSD. Stylish rooms with sea-view balconies, private beach, and blacktip sharks visible offshore.

Air Con

En Suite Bathroom

Hot Water Shower

Wifi (free)

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$64 pp/pn

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Room price based on double occupancy

Cocobana Resort

Close to the dive shop on a rocky outcropping. Large, basic rooms with incredible beach views, WiFi included, and breakfast for two provided.

Air Con

En Suite Bathroom

Hot Water Shower

Wifi (free)

from

$21 pp/pn

Select Room

Room price based on double occupancy

Malapascua Dive Sites

Malapascua has a great variety of dive sites - we've got big stuff and small stuff, reefs and wrecks, amazing coral dives and sandy muck dives, wall dives and night dives. Because the diving is in different areas and with many different influences there is a great variety of marine life. All our dive sites have excellent macro, so there is always plenty to see. Some divers have rated Malapascua's dive spots as some of the world's best diving!

Kimud Shoal - 12-26m / 60 mins

• The most famous dive site at Malapascua Island, boats set-off just before the break of dawn for the sunken island of Kimud Shoal. Thresher Sharks hunt deep in the ocean most of the day but come up to the shallow top of Monad Shoal at 60 feet to have parasites removed by cleaning wrasse every morning. Devil rays are also regularly spotted, and ver occasionally hammerheads can be seen between January to April.
  

• Previous home to the thresher sharks who moved to Kimud Shoal when the tiger sharks moved in. We get regular sightings of tigers as well as whitetips cruising the reef and cleaning stations.
  

• A little further offshore is Gato Island, where pristine reef within a protected marine reserve offers some of the best macro diving you will find in the Philippines. Frogfish, nudis, seahorses galore, including a good chance of spotting pygmy seahorses. Whitetip reef sharks and blue ring octopus are also often seen here, as well as sea snakes protected by the islands sea snake sanctuary. A short tunnel under the island makes for additional excitement for more advanced divers.
  

• You are 95% guaranteed to find whitetip sharks sleeping under rocks, and if you are lucky you will see them circling. They grow to huge sizes - sometimes over 2 meters. Other life here includes banded boxer shrimp, nudis, seahorses and scorpion fish, spider crabs, frogfish, lionfish and whip coral shrimp, perfectly color matched to the huge whip corals found inside the 'Seahorse Cave'.

• Drop down to 24m to find the extremely rare pygmy seahorse, both pink and yellow as well as spider crabs and cowries. Then work your way back along a wall where you can find lionfish and many nudibranchs, including the beautiful Spanish dancers, up to 30cm long. Painted frogfish are often in residence.
  

• Or more accurately, "The Tunnel". Journey underneath Gato Island and come out the other side! This 30m tunnel houses all the usual cave dwellers: many types of crab big and small, lobsters and cardinal fish. You should also encounter some large puffer fish and perhaps bamboo and catsharks.
• Most exciting of all, the cave is home to whitetip sharks! You may see them hiding in a corner as you pass by inches from their face, or see their silhouette as they circle near the exit in the midst of a huge school of smaller fish. If you are careful and move slowly, they will swim straight by your face. The sight of Malapascua Gato Cave is simply breathtaking. Not for the faint of heart. For experienced divers only.
• At the exit of the cave are some overhangs and swim-throughs were even inexperienced divers who cannot swim through the cave can get up close to the baby whitetips sleeping under the rocks.
  

• The mandarin fish is possibly the most beautiful fish in the world, certainly the most psychedelic. There are few places where they can be seen, but Malapascua is one of them. And - even better - on Thresher Diver's famous "Randy Mandy" dive you will see mating mandarin fish in their full glory!
  
• Mandarin fish are quite rare and very skittish, but in Malapascua, you are almost guaranteed a sighting at this time of day. You will usually see their unique mating dance, particularly around full moon. The male (who is larger) dances with the females one by one and takes his time choosing. When he finally decides on his mate, they spiral up towards the surface, shimmying together above the corals, explode in a puff of gametes, and dart off separately into the corals.
  
• A unique experience, not to be missed. What a photography opportunity!
  
• Dusk is a time most people rarely dive. However, it is one of the best times to observe marine life because of the increased feeding and mating activity. It is the time when all the action takes place on the reef! Daytime animals mix with night-time animals, and all hell breaks loose!
  
• As day turns into night, and the mandarin fish return to their hiding places, the creatures of the night come out. You should catch some interesting nudibranchs and a variety of cephalopods - reef squid, bobtail squid, starry night octopus, blue-ringed octopus and cuttlefish. Your DM will take you to find some seahorses and you may also see scribbled and banded pipefish, juvenile sweetlips, banded sea snakes,
  
• huge crabs and sea stars, many varieties of shrimp and the occasional frogfish.
  
• Many of our divers have told us this is the best night dive they have ever done.
• Also near this site is a small World War II wreck that is a great shallow dive during the day.
  

• As the name implies, we find nudibranchs galore at this site. Also around are lots of hermit crabs and scorpion fish.

Cathedral - 22m / 40 mins

• Explore some of the more amazing rock formations around Gato, including the stunning Cathedral rock. This is a great place to see sharks - we have seen as many as 15 whitetips circling. It is also possible to see blue-spotted rays.

• Calanggaman Island is the picture postcard desert island, actually chosen from over 7,000 islands to grace the cover of Jens Peters - the definitive Philippines Travel Guide. The island itself is just palm trees and a pile of white sand surrounded by crystal clear water and steep walls dropping off into the blue.
• Vis is usually good and fish life is plentiful. Drop down the walls which are covered with hard corals and gorgonian fans and inhabited by many varieties of fish. Look for pelagics out in the blue including sharks, rays, tuna and barracuda, or unusual fish like clown triggers on the wall. You can also see many critters including nudibranchs, crabs and shrimp. As you come back along the top of the wall, look for fields of garden eels, and large patches of hammerhead nudis which always seem to be mating! You can often find the beautiful white mushroom coral pipefish, ornate ghost pipefish and candy crabs as well as the very special Denise Pygmy seahorse which is currently in residence
  
• Dolphins are often seen on the way there or back.
• Often we will stop on the island for a beach barbecue during our surface interval and overnight stays can also be arranged.
  

House Reef - 9m / 5 mins

• We have been building and artificial House Reef since 2008 and it is starting to attract plenty of life. It has several old boats, a basketball hoop, Stonehenge, a toilet and several other structures that have been constructed especially for the reef.

Shore Diving - 5m

• Shore diving is limited but possible. It is very shallow off the main beach, and you will have to swim out for 200m to get even 3m. However, there are some good things to see. The first 100m is mostly sea grass, but it hides beautiful starfish, puffers, pipefish, nudibranchs, small octopus, and is the schooling ground for many juveniles. The seagrass turns into hard coral, home to schools of cardinalfish, damselfish and sergeant majors. Look carefully and you can find lionfish, moray eels and incredibly well camouflaged and very weird looking sea hares. Occasionally seen are the blue-ringed octopus and eagle rays. You must do this dive with a float or SMB above you at all times as it is so shallow.

Lighthouse Wreck - 5m / 5 mins

• The wreck at Lighthouse was a Japanese World War II landing craft. It was bombed just before landing with a large shipment of cement destined for a gun emplacement. The wreck is in very shallow water - 3m average - and is broken up with the hull in two pieces. The nearby rocks that you will see are actually bags of cement and you can still see the weave imprints on some of them!
• Marine life around the wreck includes yellow-tailed barracuda, hermit crabs, octopus, pipefish, juvenile harlequin sweetlips, and banded sea snakes. This is a great boat for wreck diving newbies and you may even dive on it during PADI Open Water course dives. It is also perfect for practicing reel use and running a line in preparation for wreck penetration into the Dona Marilyn Wreck (shown here) on the PADI Wreck Diver Specialty Course.
• Nearby is Lighthouse (see above) - easily reached from the wreck to see abundant mandarin fish and seahorses.

Dona Marilyn Wreck - 18m-32m / 90 mins

• The Dona Marilyn was a Cebu-Manila passenger ferry that sank in a typhoon over 20 years ago. It was a huge disaster and many people lost their lives. The wreck is around 100m long, and now lying on its starboard side, amazingly still all in one piece. Long lost fishing nets encrusted in coral are draped all over it, giving it quite a spooky feel!

Dive Schedule 

5 am - 7 am - Thresher Shark Dive

• Our first dive of the day is at 5.30am and it is well worth getting up this early. We provide plenty of coffee and tea, and you will get to see an amazing sunrise. On the dive, you should get to see the rare sight of thresher sharks! You will be back in time for an early breakfast. If you wish to leave earlier or later we are very flexible. In hammerhead season we often leave earlier to catch them at the break of dawn. 
• Day Dives During the day we have single dives at 10 am and 2 pm, or 2-3 tank day trips, depending on the dive site. See our list of dive sites for more information.

• Famous Randy Mandy Dive! In the late afternoon, we dive Lighthouse, where the rare and psychedelic mandarin fish are guaranteed. Do not miss the exotic mating dance of the male and his adoring females.

6 pm - Night Dive

• We also regularly run full night dives to other sites around Malapascua. The sites are very different in the dark, so it is a great idea to do a few of these both by day and by night!

About the Thresher Sharks

TSD has a very special spot where we dive for threshers and we believe it is the best shark experience you will get on Malapascua! Here are the reasons:

• TSD dives in a different area, where there are rarely any other boats and it has many cleaning stations. So it’s never too busy. We have spectacular, often close up sightings almost every day, in a much more private setting. It’s is also more interesting as it’s a “swimming” dive with the chance to see many other creatures like frogfish and ghost pipefish as well as other pelagics like rays and other sharks!
• Most other shops go to one of two very small cleaning stations to see the sharks. Here the divers stay in the same spot and kneel behind a rope waiting for a shark to appear. There are usually 4-8 boats at each spot so you will see a lot of other divers and there is not much to see if you do not see a shark.

Rates & Availability

For information on rates, availability and to book, drop us an email at info@bluewaterdivetravel.com or call us today at 310-915-6677. We will gladly help you plan your dream vacation!