Coron and Malapascua Dive Shop recomendations

[String]

Kind of relevant thread - myself and a few others are heading to Malapascua on Monday for some diving and looking for shop recommendations. Also, what dive sites do people we recommend looking at doing given we'll be there for 3 maybe 4 days diving.

Im assuming all the tanks there are dinosaur a-clamp style so i'll need to take an adaptor and deal with the usual leaks?

 

[Makhno]

String: for dive sites on Malapascua, I enjoyed Gato Island for the whitetip sharks and a good overall mix of marine life (nudis, cephalopods, ornate ghost pipefish, etc.). I liked House Reef for frogfish and a great variety of macro critters in the muck. The Dona Marilyn wreck was enjoyable and has some interesting penetrations and it's shallow enough to do it all on air or nitrox (maybe 30m depth). The Mogami Maru (aka Pioneer) is a nice little wreck at about 50 meters and makes for a nice tech dive. Deep Slope was the site where I saw a couple different colors of pygmy seahorses. Of course the famous thresher shark dive is worth waking up early for at least once, and I saw threshers and a devil ray on the wall of that same site at about 50 MSW later in the day too.

I brought my DIN adapter for single-cylinder diving but I don't think you'd need it if diving with Evolution, as I recall seeing newer cylinders that can be used with DIN or yoke. Haven't dived with other shops on the island so I can only speculate about them.

 

[String]

Just back from diving with Evolution - extremely professional and well organised centre and easily the best diving ive done anywhere in my life. Tanks were all DIN convertible so no issues there.

Managed Gato island which was stunning as were the local dives. Every dawn dive yielded thresher sharks (although rubbish for photos due to a strobe ban on Monad). Didn't have a chance to get out to the wrecks in the time allowed but that didnt take the gloss off it - i'll be back for sure.

Ended the trip with a night dive watching mating mandarin fish.

 

[Kenr]

In reading this thread one would think Evolution is the only good dive shop on the island. I dove Sea Quest, its the same outfit as on Alona Beach. I had an excellent divemaster and their boat was very good. I had no complaints and pricing was great because I got an extra discount because we dove with them at Alona Beach. We stayed at Ocean Vida and the dive shop attached to it is Sea Explorers. They looked very organized but I thought their prices were way too high for the Philippines. I'm sure Evolution is a great shop too. I will have to try it on my next trip to Malapascua.

 

[eagerbeaver]

Yes all our tanks have DIN!

 

[FinneRioaTaus]

Yes all our tanks have DIN!

Hey Matt! Is Jaimie Karsan still with you guys?

Anyway, I did my Open Water at Evolution and their place is superb. I had to walk 10 minutes to get to their place because they were fully booked that time but it was well worth it! Professional and cool people!

 

[eagerbeaver]

In reading this thread one would think Evolution is the only dive shop on the island.

There's other diveshops on Malapascua? ;-)

---------- Post added June 29th, 2013 at 09:05 PM ----------

Hey Matt! Is Jaimie Karsan still with you guys?

Anyway, I did my Open Water at Evolution and their place is superb. I had to walk 10 minutes to get to their place because they were fully booked that time but it was well worth it! Professional and cool people!

Sorry to say she headed back to England, and we all miss her! Glad you had a good trip and come back soon

 

[ScubaMoMo]

I would also recommend Evolution. Have been there three times and have send a lot of friends down there to them already. Nobody was disappointed.

 

[N.Grace]

Will be doing my first "proper dive" so to speak in Malapascua in less than two weeks. (I get certified at the weekend here in the UK). Thoroughly looking forward to it, I've heard good things about the diving there.

 

[Mantra]

Jumping aboard the we-love-evolution train. Toot toot!

The Dona Marilyn / Gato Island double dive is one hell of a day out.

Jaimie was good value.