Malapascua: Volunteering for the Thresher Shark Research Project

[AndyT]

Interesting report - thanks for posting some great info.

I am planning a trip to the Philippines in Oct, Malapascua is on the menu. How close did you manage to get to the Threshers? Just thinking of lens strategy - FE or wide zoom.

 

[rramaley]

Interesting report - thanks for posting some great info.

I am planning a trip to the Philippines in Oct, Malapascua is on the menu. How close did you manage to get to the Threshers? Just thinking of lens strategy - FE or wide zoom.

I'd stay flexible with your lens as there are a lot of variables. Visibility can range between 8 metres to over 20+, the light level varies significantly and the sharks can be close or quite far away. I guess on average you would have them come about 4 metres away from you. One time one did get as close to me as maybe 1 metre but we were only 3 divers on the site and we were extremely still so as not to scare it off. If you are diving with a commercial operation and go on the typical morning dive you'll be lucky to have fewer than 15 divers with you on the site at one time - the numbers can be as high as 150 though the dive shops do stagger themselves a bit. As for mantas, you may find that mantas are a bit more aggressive and some will swim straight towards you and veer off at the last moment with the intention of bullying you off of the cleaning site. So the mantas on average came closer to us than the sharks. By the way, check out the mantas closely - every manta I saw on the site had an injury of some sort - mainly due to fishing nets.

 

[AndyT]

Thanks - that's exactly what I needed to know.

 

[World Wide Diver]

I am sorry to have to disagree with some points made by rramaley.

First; you need a camera that is very good in low-light. Flash is forbidden with thresher (with reputable dive companies) as they are very succeptable to bright light. One flash and you will not see the shark again on your dive - plus you will be highly unpopular with everybody from all companies there.

Do you have DSLR with choice of lense? If so, choose something like a zoom macro 18-50/55 F2.8 or similar. You will shoot around ISO 400-800 minimum. Visibility can be OK, but assume 33ft/10 meters.

The shark will come close to you if you dive in a small group and remain still. Better to dive with a good operator who understands this. Try divelinkcebu.

Manta are not aggressive!!!!! It is wrong to describe these majestic animals like this. Again, shoot 400/200 ISO - normally manta visit in the afternoon with better light.

They come to Monad for cleaning and, yes, some bear scars of their life in the ocean. We have seen plenty manta who bear scars of their lifes including giants with nets on them (sad but true) worldwide.

Hope this helps.

 

[rramaley]

I am sorry to have to disagree with some points made by rramaley.

First; you need a camera that is very good in low-light. Flash is forbidden with thresher (with reputable dive companies) as they are very succeptable to bright light. One flash and you will not see the shark again on your dive - plus you will be highly unpopular with everybody from all companies there.

Do you have DSLR with choice of lense? If so, choose something like a zoom macro 18-50/55 F2.8 or similar. You will shoot around ISO 400-800 minimum. Visibility can be OK, but assume 33ft/10 meters.

The shark will come close to you if you dive in a small group and remain still. Better to dive with a good operator who understands this. Try divelinkcebu.

Manta are not aggressive!!!!! It is wrong to describe these majestic animals like this. Again, shoot 400/200 ISO - normally manta visit in the afternoon with better light.

They come to Monad for cleaning and, yes, some bear scars of their life in the ocean. We have seen plenty manta who bear scars of their lifes including giants with nets on them (sad but true) worldwide.

Hope this helps.

I will definitely defer to to World Wide Diver on the subject of cameras as I am not a photographer whatsoever and I did not take still photographs while diving at Monad. I was only referring to my own experiences at the shoal with respect to light and visibility but WWD definitely brings up a good point about no flash at Monad. Our project never used still cameras to document the animal behaviour and we were told up front that if we came with our own camera equipment, flash would not be allowed during thresher / manta encounters as the light disturbs the animals (last year I saw a turtle visibly flinch when someone took a flash picture of it so I would not question the legitimacy of this claim)

Thanks for the clarifications here WWD!

However I do have to stand by my statement that Mantas can get aggressive with divers, though a manta's display of aggressiveness is on a completely different level as when, say, a silvertip is aggressive. And I probably have exaggerated on how frequently this behaviour actually is displayed. So let me rephrase - "Mantas will sometimes become territorial with divers if they feel the divers are where they want to be". In these situations they can swim straight at you and turn at the last second - I saw this happen twice at Monad and I was told that this territorial behaviour has been confirmed by scientists who study them. In fact, someone on the project once had a manta actually come into contact with him and push him away from a station. One caveat - this has only been witnessed when the diving group is very small - the times I saw it happen there I was in a group of 3 and 4 people and the time where the person was actually touched, he was basically alone as his buddy was about 10 metres away. Now, I am of the opinion still that Mantas are beautiful, majestic, graceful, non-violent creatures and this behaviour doesn't at all change my opinion. It just tells me that they are not pushovers and when they need to be cleaned, they will make sure that they can get cleaned without a lone diver getting in their way. Heck, wouldn't you if you were in their shoes (so to speak)? The takeaway for me is: stay off of the cleaning station itself so the mantas and sharks can be cleaned in peace.

 

[AndyT]

Thanks for the info both of you !

WWD - my camera info is in my signature. Now that I know that I will be shooting natural light I have something to work with. What depth can I expect to be shooting at?

As for the rules of no divers on the cleaning stations, it also applies in Mozambique so I guess that is what I was expecting.

Once again many thanks for the useful feedback.

 

[xariatay]

rramaley, nice report! I miss those thresher sharks! thanks for the info abt tagging. Oh, I thought the anchoring at Monad is with the mooring lines???

AndyT, depth is abt 26m. Ya, the sharks don't come close with many divers around & the viz could be quite bad - less than 10m. No even small torchlights are allowed (the Exotic boatcrew "confiscated" our little Q40, dunno abt others...). My camera was zoomed in 6x (max) & it couldn't focus in the low light & so I had to take video... Hee, but if your E3, I m sure it would be great!

 

[rramaley]

Oh, I thought the anchoring at Monad is with the mooring lines???

There are, as you know, a number of mooring buoys at Monad but boats have still been known to use anchors - but there are plenty of times where there are more boats at the location than there are buoys...

In the case that I watched, though, the anchors were being used IN ADDITION to a mooring buoy as a way to stabilize the movement of the boat in big swell. I don't know if the anchors were even touching the substrate - either way its bad for divers who are in the water as the anchors are being dropped and then of course bad for the substrate if the anchors touch it at any point.

Check out this video if you want to see flagrant use of anchors at Monad. I can't believe this guy Jonathan Bird gets paid for what he does - he is such a nitwit. He makes it seem like Monad is the wild west and that you can't just motor 20 metres away and pick up a buoy. YouTube - Jonathan Bird's Blue World #6: Thresher Sharks. Its people like this who give diving and underwater photography / cinematography a bad name.

 

[World Wide Diver]

So let me rephrase - "Mantas will sometimes become territorial with divers if they feel the divers are where they want to be". In these situations they can swim straight at you and turn at the last second - I saw this happen twice at Monad and I was told that this territorial behaviour has been confirmed by scientists who study them. In fact, someone on the project once had a manta actually come into contact with him and push him away from a station.

Thanks for this information. Though I have never experienced this, I can understand why manta (or any animal) visiting a cleaning station would be upset if a diver hindered them.

Regarding anchors, I thought that boat times were being staggered now? How many buoy's are there vs banca at the moment? I know that Fun and Sun are fairly new there, but have nos. of banca increased since last year?

When we were there, bancas tended to moor to each other (stern lines) rather than drop anchor.

 

[chip104]

There's a video on here of Mike getting smacked by a manta....pretty funny stuff.

edit: here's the thread but the link doesn't work anymore....http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/philippine-paradise-divers/132974-i-posted-video-web.html. I'd rehost it if Mikiki doesn't mind.