Malapascua trip, June 03 to 08 2011 – some words and pics

[Terryb]

Wantonmein,

thanks again for the info, I will check out your suggestions and will definitely post a trip report on all locations we get to when I get back.

Cheers,

[Makhno]

Thanks for the trip report, Wantonmien.

I have a lot of questions, but I'll try to find time to ask most of them in person when I see you on the hammerheads trip at Chinese New Year.

One question for here: How about the wrecks? Did you dive any of them? I know that many divers go to Malapascua solely for the thresher shark encounters (and I'd be happy to add threshers to my list of over a dozen shark species seen), but there are also some good wrecks near Malapascua. Did you dive any of them? If so, what can you report about them?

Cheers,
m

[Wantonmien]

Makno - see you soon then - weather sucks here in Taipei right now, and hope it's better on GI !

Malapascua - No I didn't dive on the any wrecks, think the large ferry that went down there is diveable, though perhaps not popular due to the lives that went down with it ?

[hellhole]

i dove that wreck when i was there in dec... no penatration.

the ferry is already broken up into pieces, but it kinna interesting.. there is a lot of big bullets left all around...

[Centrals]

Dived Dona Marilyn twice about 8 yrs ago. Pretty impressive.
Dive operators would only go there if there is enough demand. Do expect to pay extra for the fuel.
Enquire with every operator for a possible trip if you are around.
Nitrox with an 13L tank is about right to dive this beauty. Full tec gear would be even better.

[Kupu]

Hellhole, it sounds like you dove the Oakita Maru, aka Tapilon. It is a WWII cargo carrier located close to the mainland, quite broken up but still can be an interesting dive. It is not difficult to locate a few 2-3 inch artillery shells at that site. Depth is 22-28 meters.

The passenger ferry Dona Marilyn went down much more recently, in 1988 during a typhoon. Located past Gato island, it is very much intact and a great dive. Weather conditions need to be fairly calm to get out to this site. There is plenty to see on the outside of the wreck, and it provides a number of options for penetration. However, most dive operators on Malapascua will not allow penetration without proper training. Depth on this site is 18-32 meters.

Nitrox is recommended on both of these sites, bottom times are a bit short on air.

There are two other known wrecks around Malapascua. There is a WWII landing craft known as the lighthouse wreck which is in very shallow water close to Malapascua. It is very broken up, and mostly visited for training dives. The Mogami Maru, aka the Pioneer, is a smaller WWII wreck that is fairly intact and not usually visited due to the depths of around 45-50 meters. It is however a good dive for those who are qualified.

[Centrals]

.... but there are also some good wrecks near Malapascua.

If you are a wreck buff then there is another deep wreck just down the coast at Camotes Island. Princess of Boholana which lies around 52-60m. Contact Ocean Deep for details.

[Pao]

We just went to Malapascua last week. We had great thresher shark encounters on all three days we dove Monad. It was worth getting up at 4 AM. Some devil rays were also around. I never knew there were accessible wrecks in the area. Our guide was kinda hesitant when I asked about the wrecks. Maybe for the next trip...

[supergaijin]

BTW I think the coral at Monad Shoal is actually naturally 'rubble'. I used to work in Cebu and we dived regularly at Tingo Point where it also possible to see threshers but with less success rate. It was a deep dive- usually getting down to approx 40m. The top of the reef is still deep- comparable with Monad Shoal and it is very very similar in colour and 'texture'. There is a lot of small critters like sea wasps, seahorses, nudis etc to find in the 'rubble'.

When I went to Malapascua a few years ago it was during a fairly heavy monsoon. Ferries were cancelled but me and a guy chartered a small boat to get us across, drank rum from the bottle and prayed to Poseidon. We dived alone on Monad, saw a couple of threshers in the distance but they weren't coming in. Went again and the same thing happened but we had talked to the DM and so we agreed to just dive around if nothing was happening and ended up just bumbling around the shoal and there's plenty of muck to find.

[Makhno]

As it turns out, I did dives on the Mogami Maru and the Dona Marilyn last month and thoroughly enjoyed them both.

(I also enjoyed the thresher sharks, the whitetip sharks, the pygmy seahorses, ornate ghost pipefish, frogfish, etc., etc., at Malapascua.)

I'll try to get around to writing a trip report sometime soon.