2016 - Philippines

 

 

We have spent our spring vacation 2016 on Cebu Island, the Philippines...

18 days all in all, 15 nights at site. 7 nights at Malapascua, a small little island in the north of Cebu, the other 8 days close to Moalboal.

 

To summarize: Philippines is a dream for macro diving... Small little stuff around, nudibranchs, crabs, frog fishes in all colors, seahorses, pygmy seahorses, ghost pipe fishes and lot of nice colorful soft corals!!!! 

But the trip over there is quite a challenge... 12 hours flight to Singapore, stop over, another 6 hours flight to Cebu, from there 4 - 5 hours by car and another 90 minutes by boat to reach Malapascua. 

From Malapascua to Moalboal are 6 - 7 hours by car. And even from Moalboal to Cebu City and the airport again 4 hours.

So what, once you reached your final destination a dream comes true!!!

 

Hotel "Malapascua Legends Resort" and diving with "Devocean Divers" 

 

Malapascua Legends Resort: 

The first 7 night we stayed at Malapscua Legends Resort, a small 3 Star hotel with simple but clean rooms, basic breakfast and friendly staff.

We got a superior room at the ground floor, two king-size beds and a small terrace.

The rooms are in good condition, nothing special but AC and minibar inside.

The hotel was opened 2010 and is supposed to be the best one at side. In fact it is ok, nicely located at the beach and close to the Dive Center, but nothing special.

We have booked break first only. Which was a good idea, there are many nice small little restaurants close by. With fair prices and excellent food.

What else to do at Malapascua:

Besides diving of course walking around at the island. There are small pathways crossing the island. It is not big, so no worry that you might loose your way.

It is not dangerous to walk around, we met quite a lot of friendly people there, and the fruits and the bottled drinks at the small little shops are good and cheap.

Devocean Divers:

Small little dive center close to the hotel, all necessary facilities are there to clean and try your equipment. 

Diving with the guys was nice, we can recommend the dive center! Compared to most of the others that we have seen it is pretty well organized, more expensive, but not overcrowded with crazy diving guests from China or Taiwan. They prefer the local dive centers which are cheaper.

The reefs themselves  are not far away from the dive center, just some minutes by boat, shore dive is not possible there (just not deep enough). The boats leave starts by either directly from the shore (during high tide) or they take you over to the dive boats by smaller zodiacs. All your equipment, weights and tanks are carried over and if you do a double tank dive, you can leave your equipment on the boat itself. Everything nicely organized and the diving is not too overcrowded but happens in smaller groups.

We have been a bid unlucky with the visibility. It was the end of the rain season, so some rain showers during night, some waves and -coming along with that- also bad visibility. That's why we did not go to the "tresher shark" place. It is an early morning dive, leaving at 05:00 or 05:30, then going down to 26 meters and hanging behind a rope for 30 - 40 minutes, waiting and hoping to see one of them. Water was relatively cold as well, only 24 - 25 degrees. All that, combined with bad visibility and low chances to see a thresher shark is just not worth giving it a try.

Instead of that we enjoyed the dives close to the island, and the once at Gato Island and at Kalangawan Island. Both areas offered better visibility and Kalangawan island itself is a dream. White sandy beaches, coconut trees, barbecue there, nothing else what you would need. Despite the long trip to reach the island (90 minutes by bot and the high price it is worthwhile going there....

 

Hotel "Dolphin House" and diving with "Dive College Dolphin House"

Dolphin House: 

The remaining 8 nights we stayed at a the Dolphin House.

The name of the hotel is Dolphin House, a nice 5 star hotel with excellent garden, nice rooms, friendly staff, fine food (try the Sushi!!!) and a dream on a dive center, Dive College Dolphin House.

First some information about the hotel: We got a nice superior bungalow, ground floor with a nice terrace.

The rooms are in excellent condition and perfectly cleaned up. Aircon is split AC, so very quiet, mosquito net in front of the windows, nice furniture, comfortable bed. The pool of the hotel is nicely located in the middle of a beautiful garden, nice sun chairs, umbrellas and quite!

 

The restaurant is excellent and offers fantastic food, not only lunch and dinner, but an excellent breakfast as well. This we missed in our first week at the Philippines so we were so happy to get nice food and nice fruits at Dolphin House.

Breakfast is excellent as I said, besides standard coffee you can ask for all type of variations, Cappuccino or Coffee Latte…

Special thanks to the staff at the restaurants. Friendly, polite, always a smile and very nice…

Don't miss out the karaoke nights at the bar. The guys from the dive center are hanging around singing, very nice!!! And don't miss the biology seminars from the dive center. The students working at the dive center offer once or twice a week seminars giving insight to flora and fauna of the ocean, and of course insight into different species of fishes which are living there at the Philippines.

 

What to do there at Moalboal:

You can do some trips to the city, go shopping, have something to eat, visit the orchid farm. But the best thing you can do is booking a day trip with the dive center to the water falls. During the trip you can go diving (two spots), the guides take you to local water falls (through the jungle) and go cliff diving with you... Nice lunch at the water falls is included.

 

Dive College Dolphin House:

Excellent 5 Star dive center at hotel Dolphin House, with highly trained staff, friendly and excellent in finding / spotting and showing you nice little stuff under water-

Diving with the guys is JUST GREAT!!! We enjoyed it so much to hang around over and of course under water with them.

Excellent diving with excellent staff, competent, friendly, nice.

What else do you want? Clear visibility and warm water. Both of it we got, 30 - 40 meters visibility (besides during the last dive) and 26 - 27 degrees Celsius, hardly any current, JUST PERFECT!!!

The boats and the facilities are well maintained and in excellent conditions. You will enough space on the boat and in the dive center to clean and hang up your staff. Each couple gets a separate cabinet to hang the equipment and get it try. There is even enough space for the suitcase.

 

Anything to complain??? NOTHING!!! Just that 8 nights is by far too short for this place!!! 

How does diving work: Pretty flexible!!! one early morning dive, two dives in the morning, one dive in the afternoon and if required a night dive as well.

A must is in any case: Pescador Island, Mandarin Dive and the night dive at the house riff... Why: Just have a look at the pictures of our picture homepage (or the selection below) and you will find out why!!!

How about reef and fish live? 

The reefs themselves  are not far away from the hotel, just some minutes by boat, house reef diving is possible there as well; and recommended because of the excellent condition of the house riff and the biodiversity there. It is supposed to be one of the leading house reef in the world!!! 

Diving starts by boat from a platform close by, you have to walk over a pathway (not to destroy the corals) and swim at deeper water. So you have to walk some minutes to the entrance point, carrying all your equipment with you. You will see, this doesn’t bother you that much because of the excellent house reef that you can explore... On your own, if you are experienced enough, unguided diving!!! Limited only by the air consumption!!! 

 

Diving with the boat is easy too. They have a big diving boat for full day trips and some smaller once for single tank dives. The boats take you to the dive spots pretty fast, 5 minutes to 20 minutes at a maximum. Even if there are more divers on the boat, the diving itself is organized in smaller groups and the dive center makes sure that divers join each other which have a similar experience and air consumption. 

Nice as well, the flexible diving they offer. Check out with the supervisors if you want to go to a place where you haven't been yet (or to a place they do not have on the map)... If possible (means if there are no other guests that might interfere) they will try to make it happen... HAPPY DIVERS, HAPPY LIFE!!!

We loved to stay with you guys, thanks again a ton for all the nice dives we had!!!

Especially for the breathtaking night dives at the house reef and the Mandarin dive which we will always remember!!!

 

 

Below you can find a map showing the area and impressions from the hotels, the countryside and from diving with Devocean Divers and Dive College Dolphin House. 

Have fun looking at the pictures and share with us our nice memories.