Where are the big fish?

Big Hello PPD!
Planning trip to PI 1st 2 weeks of April.
Just wondering which areas are best for the chance to see some of the larger creatures, you know, varities of sharks, rays, turtles, barracuda...
Have booked to fly to Cebu stay 1 week Alona, dive Bal, Cab, Pam, islands from there.
Then 1 week Apo Island. All of which I'm sure will be great.
Not gotten into macro stuff before, which will be cool, but it just keeps it interesting seeing some big creatures flying around you!
When look more into it seems the better mix is more northerly, Bahura, PG.
Read so much conflicting stuff, and things like you can get makos off Pamilican!? Really?
Not too late to change bookings, and more confused about where to go than ever.
It all seems great, just don't have the time to do it all!!
Please help!

Sure that many will quite rightly recommend Tubbataha - liveaboard only. There are a few people advertising spaces/just contact the operators for availability.

If you want resort based diving, Malapascua Island is the best place in the World for viewing thresher shark on Monad Shoal. They also have manta ray regularly visiting - check with local operators what will be in season during your holiday dates.

Gato Island (reached from Malapascua) has white tip shark and blue spotted stingray.

If you are lucky, you can also see devil rays on Kimod Shoal. We saw 9 circling when we we there (late February). People have seen hammerhead here, but think that you have to there around December/January and dive deeper.

As for other places we have dived, the area around General Santos, Mindanao has the best big stuff - plenty napoleons, rays (eagle rays fairly common, manta now and again), shark (white tip, greys, black tip), giant/yellowtail barracuda, bumpheads, turtle (green and hawksbill), many species of unicornfish (schooling in their 1000's), trevally (big eye, giant), etc, etc, etc. Don't be put off by what you read about safety in Mindanao - the area is perfectly safe and people are very friendly.

Though we have dived many other areas (excellent diving), there is not usually a terrific amount of big stuff in other areas. A tip would be to check the moon phase/tide tables to try and hit a area when there is good current - you always see more fish action when a current is running.

Hope this is useful.

if you come for two weeks and want to see bigger stuff I can really only recommend a dive-safari to Tubbataha. That would fit almost perfect for beginning of April.

All other destinations are a compromising solution and a few sleepy sharks in PG are or some Jackfish and Turtles at Apo are not the spice in the Adobo. (don't get me wrong PG and Apo diving is awesome).

You may get closest to big-stuff-diving in Malapascua during that time if your vacation should be land-based. Malapascua also gives you a great macro-intro.

Pamilican? don't know, sorry ... did also not hear anything from any reliable source about that.

hope it helps for now a bit

Rhoody

i think solanabezo, a member of SB, is running a dive op in pamilacan, bohol. try to PM him or chicoboy.

Pamilican, Bohol is slope diving compared to the many wall dives of Bohol. SB member Gilligan has written up his thoughts on the place so take a look at his posts. He was mentioning that most of the dive sites around the island consists of sandy bottom with coral islands.

Not sure about the Makos, but I've always thought that Balicasag has more of the big fish action than Pamilican. Judging from Gilligan's pictures there's good macro to be found in Pamilican.

You can always try Donsol/Manta Bowl for whale sharks and mantas.

cheers,

Z...

Not that I mean to know everything...but...you might not want to spend a whole week on APO...its pretty small and the electricity only runs for part of the day...

The diving is great but I think you might find a better place to do a weeks worth of time...like stay in Dauin and just do day trips to Apo Island.

Unless you want an extremely quiet end to your stay.

Hope this helps, don't get me wrong, Apo is beautiful...just VERY quiet!

J.

Gonna have to agree with WWD... head to Malapascua. We had threshers, mantas, and devil rays (mobulas) out on Monad shoal. On the first trip to Malapacua, we had threshers in the morning and large mantas in the afternoon at Monad shoal. But on our second trip, we had a near collision between a thresher and large manta who forgot he wasn't suppose to be there in the wee hours of the morning! Also, there are sleeping white tip reef sharks in the caves at Gato Island. Balacasag, you might get lucky with some barracudas. Same with Cabilao.

Thanks for all the replies.

Tubba reefs would be great, but bit over our budget this time, and girlfriend is only ow and not keen on liveaboard (yet!) General Santos isn't a place considered before again sounds great, like the fact its not so touristed, but will have to be for another visit.
Moalbal / Malapascua were the first places checked out, but then Apo seemed amazing, and not wanting to waste too much time travelling between locations, Alona also seemed like a good option to have 2 close locations as base camp, with good variety of dive sites and interesting sites on Bohol, maximum chillage on Apo. (as far and nice an ecape from London)
But, seeing the threshers/ mantas seems too big a draw to pass up.
Think will now try to spend 4 days Malapascua, 4 Alona , 5 Apo.
Is there a faster/ easier way to get Malapascua-Alona than having to go back via Cebu?
Possible to get a direct boat, or hire someone to take us? Or is that crazy talk.
Thanks again for all the help.
Cheers.

I don't have much experience from the Philippines but I made ruffly the same trip a year ago as the one you are planning now. Your plans look great, but maybe three stops in two weeks is a little to much? The thing is that Apo Island and Balicasag is quite similar and I would even say that Balicasag offers better diving.

Divers with more experience from Apo Island and Balicasag, please comment.

My advice would be to skip Apo Island and the hazzle of the tranfers and concentrate on Malapascua and Alona. I'm going back in a week myself, but this time we'll stay in one place (Dumaguete) for the full two weeks.

If you pre book you diving from the UK I'm sure the dive op could take care of the transfers for you.

Then again, if it is the big stuff your looking for, why don't you go to the Red Seas?