Not very many people know where this tiny island is, even fewer know what you can find there. This wasn't the case for us, as Robyn had spent the last 2 months doing research on the internet about it, and why might you ask? After 5 years as a dive master, I had finally decided to take the next step and do my scuba diving instructors course.
Making the decision was the easiest part of the plan. The hardest part was deciding where to do it. Do you know how many places you can do your instructors in Asia? Too many that's how many!
Our mission was simple, to find the cheapest place in Asia to do it, whilst making sure that it also had a decent reputation, was not an easy task. So countless emails and too many hours later we found a dive centre that seemed to tick all our boxes.
The dive centre was on an island called Malapascua. Malapascua is a small island in the middle of the Philippines, with it's only tourist attraction being that it is the only place in the world where you can see Thresher Sharks being cleaned on a daily basis (if you are lucky enough) by cleaner wrasse.
My IDC course was going to take just over 3 weeks. Rob, not being the type to sit around and twiddle her thumbs found a volunteer research program that she could do while I did my instructors. Upon our arrival in Maya (the launching spot for the boats to Malapascua) we were quickly surrounded by locals telling us that there were no more boats for the day but we could get a private charter for 1000peso ($25!) Luckily we had been forewarned about this scam and knew that the real price was only around 100 peso ($2.50), so we declined and told them we would be more than happy to wait, even sleep at the pier if need be until the next boat. After 5 minutes they realised we were seriously not in a hurry and they then decided that there was in fact a boat going right now and that the price was only 100 peso! Wow what good luck we must have had! lol
Upon arrival at the local beach on Malapascua we were greeted by the local touts, their eyes shone bright with the prospect of making a quick dollar, but they were soon let down to find out that we already knew where we were going. After a quick stop off at the dive shop to off load the dive gear, one of the girls from the shop took us around to a few guest houses to find some accommodation. After a a few fails we found our home for the next 5 weeks. A guest house called BeBe's had a bungalow near the village with own bathroom for 7000 pesos a month (about $150.) Score! And it turned out that this was also where all the other people doing my IDC (instructor development course) happened to be staying!
So a bit about this island in case you ever decide to go - the majority of the locals rely on either the thresher sharks or fishing for their income. Most tourists do 2 or 3 days diving with the sharks and then leave the island as quickly as they arrived. They barely see anything but the “tourist-strip” and the blue water.
However, if they did manage to leave their overpriced lodging on the beachfront and go and explore the rest of the island, they would be surprised. It is nice, not a want to sell your house and move there nice, but interesting nice. Outside of the touristy areas there are a few villages where few tourists go, some nice beaches that are quiet and secluded and even some great little local eateries to get your food from. But in saying that, if the thresher sharks ever stopped going to Monad Shoal (the place to see them,) the island would disappear off the tourist radar as there really is nothing else for a tourist to do there.
Once Robyn had got herself settled in with her project she was most often than not never to be found. She was either off working on the project, or hanging out with her fellow researchers, drinking chocolate shakes at Ging gings or having happy hour cocktails after another rewarding day of diving and research. The research project at the time was focused on the impact of divers on the rejuvenation of the reef, and subsequently on the cleaning behaviour of the sharks, an area that both Robyn and I were already interested in, after seeing countless divers kick the coral, or try to ride marine animals. On Monad it was particularly bad as divers had to wait in one spot on the shoal for the sharks to appear. We actually saw so-called “environmentally conscious” divers literally standing on the reef, sitting on the reef and even playing naughts and crosses with pieces of live coral. It was horrendous to watch, but it just reinforced the importance of the research, and the absolute need for greater awareness. Most days the research involved 2 or 3 dives, using different scientific diving techniques and methods to monitor the reef, the sharks and the cleaner fish. Being new to the world of scientific diving, Rob didn't really know what to expect, but by the end of it, she had found a new passion, and learnt new skills to add to her ever expanding resume. Oh, and of course she has already started to prowl the internet for other scientific diving projects to participate in!
As for me, I would have a lazy breakfast around 8am and start class around 9am thanks to our course director Rich Reardon who emphasised a “no stress no hurry” policy with everything he did. We would either do exams, watch painfully dull PADI videos, (oops I mean fantastically enjoyable) or practice in-water rescues and skills circuits over and over again until around 11 or 12. After a relaxing 2 hour break (which gave us ample time to study or prepare for the afternoon classes) we would head back to the classroom, finishing the day around 4 to 5pm. We would then all sulk off to BeBe's complaining how hard the course was and how we all thought everyone else was better than ourselves. We would all then spend the next few hours preparing for the next morning's class and stressing about how difficult the course was. After our afternoon freakout we would have a few beers or some Tanduay Rhum to make ourselves feel better about our failing scores on that days test or how we missed a certain aspect of a demonstration whilst telling our classmates how wonderful they were.
After a week Robyn and I both became very settled and fell into the hum-drum of routine (be it an ever unusual routine.) Breakfast at one place, lunch at another, afternoon freak out beers with the other IDC crew or Rob's research crew on our balcony, and then dinner at a cheap local eatery (with a couple of dives or classes in between.) Occasionally we would venture out for sunset cocktails or triple shots of rhum and coke (that were for some reason cheaper than if you had a single shot!?!....does it make sense to you because it never made sense to us). And even more occasionally, we would splurge and eat at a decent italian pizza place on the beach.
After a week we by-chance found an eatery that was impossible to find at dark let alone drunk and dark, but it turned out to be one of my favourite memories of the island. It was a place called “Jopies Hilltop Eatery.” There were no signs and you had to give her 6 hours warning before you went, and you also didn't get to chose what you ate.
This is how dinner would generally unravel at the Hilltop Eatery.......
11.30am- Roh: Hey mama can I come for dinner tonight?
Mama: Yes ok.
Roh: I will bring 4 friends, maybe 6 is this ok?
Mama: Yes ok. 7.00pm ok.
7.00pm- Roh: Hey mama we are here.
Mama: Ok you sit down, tonight I have already made for you …... (insert stupidly amazing food here)....
Roh: Wow mama that sounds amazing!! How much is it?
Mama: Rice 10 peso, Chicken Joy 30 peso (fried chicken the way the colonel wanted it to be) and (insert stupidly amazing food here).... 30 peso, vegetables only 15 peso...
Roh: Wow mama this is the best!!
But here lies the problem, the food was so good you couldn't stop with one serving, or with one piece of chicken, or with one serve of vegetables. If you had the ability to stop gorging yourself like a normal person you could walk away with only spending 45 pesos ($1.00) but do you think anyone who went there ever could? The answer was no.
Oh you needed to order breakfast the night before! To this day they were the best pancakes I have ever eaten! Her breakfasts were so notorious that most of the the IDC crew would spend the first part of the morning on her balcony freaking out about the next exam or recovering from the night before whilst scoffing down 3 or 4 pancakes. At only 15 pesos each they are the cheapest pancakes we have ever seen, so cheap in fact, that we asked her to increase the price to 20 peso as we felt bad ...or it could have been the rhum talking.
But in between all this study and research, we still managed to have a few fun dives. Every time I dived with the thresher sharks I would have one swim by less than 5 meters in front of me, apparently that is rare, but it happened to me on at least 6 dives in a row. Robyn however didn't have the same luck, and every dive that she missed, her colleagues would surface saying they saw a manta or a thresher shark doing back flips or something along those lines.
After 3 weeks of doing my IDC the day (2 days actually) had finally come to do my final exams. It was stressful but because our course director had helped us prepare for these 2 days for the last 3 weeks, we felt we couldn't go wrong.
But believe it or not, as we readied ourselves for this stressful experience Malapascua was hit by a typhoon. But as they say “the show must go on.” Whoever said that had clearly not tried to demonstrate an unconscious diver skill, which involves trying to give emergency breathes to an unconscious victim whilst trying to tow them to a boat! Otherwise they would have changed it to “the show is able to stop during a typhoon!” But alas we continued and after a wet, cold and uncomfortable 2 days, we all passed the exam. That night our dive centre decided to throw us a “congrats for not dying in the typhoon” party (aka a congrats for passing party).
For the record let me say this- divers know how to drink. The majority of dive masters and instructors are alcoholic, chain smoking, caffeine addicted grumpy surly types who don't want to know you unless you want to spend money at their shop/resort/centre. If you do want to spend money there, hey well you have just found a new best friend, wait your credit card got declined..... ahh back to grumpy surly guy again.. (But we have met some who do not fit the above stereotype of instructors or dive masters)
Back to the party, it was loose! Like any party with an open bar normally is. Enough said about that!
After a good 2 day recovery, one of our good friends Nathan (who we had previously worked with in Australia and traveled with in Borneo) decided to join us.
Whenever Rob, Nathan and I get together there is generally a lot of booze and a lot of shenanigans followed by a lot of exercise. Not necessarily the best combination but it seems to be the way things roll for us. It was Nathan's first time in the Philippines and we were pretty keen to show him what we had learnt and discovered during the last 4 weeks.
And so, our last week on Malapascua was spent doing the touristy things - drinking, diving, eating and a lot of lounging around with a bit of exercise for good mix (to which the locals would often stare and laugh and probably say things like “stupid fat white people,why do they do stupid things like lifting a brick over his head repeatedly?”).
When we had both finished our courses, it was time for us to depart (with Nathan as had decided he was going to travel with us for a few more weeks) and we said our goodbyes to our new friends.
Before going our separate ways, some of us from the IDC crew got together and put money in to pay one of the locals to make mama a sign for her restaurant, so if you are ever on Malapascua and you need an amazing meal, look out for “Jopias and Mamas Hilltop Eatery” in the village, you wont be disappointed.
Making the decision was the easiest part of the plan. The hardest part was deciding where to do it. Do you know how many places you can do your instructors in Asia? Too many that's how many!
Our mission was simple, to find the cheapest place in Asia to do it, whilst making sure that it also had a decent reputation, was not an easy task. So countless emails and too many hours later we found a dive centre that seemed to tick all our boxes.
The dive centre was on an island called Malapascua. Malapascua is a small island in the middle of the Philippines, with it's only tourist attraction being that it is the only place in the world where you can see Thresher Sharks being cleaned on a daily basis (if you are lucky enough) by cleaner wrasse.
My IDC course was going to take just over 3 weeks. Rob, not being the type to sit around and twiddle her thumbs found a volunteer research program that she could do while I did my instructors. Upon our arrival in Maya (the launching spot for the boats to Malapascua) we were quickly surrounded by locals telling us that there were no more boats for the day but we could get a private charter for 1000peso ($25!) Luckily we had been forewarned about this scam and knew that the real price was only around 100 peso ($2.50), so we declined and told them we would be more than happy to wait, even sleep at the pier if need be until the next boat. After 5 minutes they realised we were seriously not in a hurry and they then decided that there was in fact a boat going right now and that the price was only 100 peso! Wow what good luck we must have had! lol
Upon arrival at the local beach on Malapascua we were greeted by the local touts, their eyes shone bright with the prospect of making a quick dollar, but they were soon let down to find out that we already knew where we were going. After a quick stop off at the dive shop to off load the dive gear, one of the girls from the shop took us around to a few guest houses to find some accommodation. After a a few fails we found our home for the next 5 weeks. A guest house called BeBe's had a bungalow near the village with own bathroom for 7000 pesos a month (about $150.) Score! And it turned out that this was also where all the other people doing my IDC (instructor development course) happened to be staying!
So a bit about this island in case you ever decide to go - the majority of the locals rely on either the thresher sharks or fishing for their income. Most tourists do 2 or 3 days diving with the sharks and then leave the island as quickly as they arrived. They barely see anything but the “tourist-strip” and the blue water.
However, if they did manage to leave their overpriced lodging on the beachfront and go and explore the rest of the island, they would be surprised. It is nice, not a want to sell your house and move there nice, but interesting nice. Outside of the touristy areas there are a few villages where few tourists go, some nice beaches that are quiet and secluded and even some great little local eateries to get your food from. But in saying that, if the thresher sharks ever stopped going to Monad Shoal (the place to see them,) the island would disappear off the tourist radar as there really is nothing else for a tourist to do there.
Once Robyn had got herself settled in with her project she was most often than not never to be found. She was either off working on the project, or hanging out with her fellow researchers, drinking chocolate shakes at Ging gings or having happy hour cocktails after another rewarding day of diving and research. The research project at the time was focused on the impact of divers on the rejuvenation of the reef, and subsequently on the cleaning behaviour of the sharks, an area that both Robyn and I were already interested in, after seeing countless divers kick the coral, or try to ride marine animals. On Monad it was particularly bad as divers had to wait in one spot on the shoal for the sharks to appear. We actually saw so-called “environmentally conscious” divers literally standing on the reef, sitting on the reef and even playing naughts and crosses with pieces of live coral. It was horrendous to watch, but it just reinforced the importance of the research, and the absolute need for greater awareness. Most days the research involved 2 or 3 dives, using different scientific diving techniques and methods to monitor the reef, the sharks and the cleaner fish. Being new to the world of scientific diving, Rob didn't really know what to expect, but by the end of it, she had found a new passion, and learnt new skills to add to her ever expanding resume. Oh, and of course she has already started to prowl the internet for other scientific diving projects to participate in!
As for me, I would have a lazy breakfast around 8am and start class around 9am thanks to our course director Rich Reardon who emphasised a “no stress no hurry” policy with everything he did. We would either do exams, watch painfully dull PADI videos, (oops I mean fantastically enjoyable) or practice in-water rescues and skills circuits over and over again until around 11 or 12. After a relaxing 2 hour break (which gave us ample time to study or prepare for the afternoon classes) we would head back to the classroom, finishing the day around 4 to 5pm. We would then all sulk off to BeBe's complaining how hard the course was and how we all thought everyone else was better than ourselves. We would all then spend the next few hours preparing for the next morning's class and stressing about how difficult the course was. After our afternoon freakout we would have a few beers or some Tanduay Rhum to make ourselves feel better about our failing scores on that days test or how we missed a certain aspect of a demonstration whilst telling our classmates how wonderful they were.
After a week Robyn and I both became very settled and fell into the hum-drum of routine (be it an ever unusual routine.) Breakfast at one place, lunch at another, afternoon freak out beers with the other IDC crew or Rob's research crew on our balcony, and then dinner at a cheap local eatery (with a couple of dives or classes in between.) Occasionally we would venture out for sunset cocktails or triple shots of rhum and coke (that were for some reason cheaper than if you had a single shot!?!....does it make sense to you because it never made sense to us). And even more occasionally, we would splurge and eat at a decent italian pizza place on the beach.
After a week we by-chance found an eatery that was impossible to find at dark let alone drunk and dark, but it turned out to be one of my favourite memories of the island. It was a place called “Jopies Hilltop Eatery.” There were no signs and you had to give her 6 hours warning before you went, and you also didn't get to chose what you ate.
This is how dinner would generally unravel at the Hilltop Eatery.......
11.30am- Roh: Hey mama can I come for dinner tonight?
Mama: Yes ok.
Roh: I will bring 4 friends, maybe 6 is this ok?
Mama: Yes ok. 7.00pm ok.
7.00pm- Roh: Hey mama we are here.
Mama: Ok you sit down, tonight I have already made for you …... (insert stupidly amazing food here)....
Roh: Wow mama that sounds amazing!! How much is it?
Mama: Rice 10 peso, Chicken Joy 30 peso (fried chicken the way the colonel wanted it to be) and (insert stupidly amazing food here).... 30 peso, vegetables only 15 peso...
Roh: Wow mama this is the best!!
But here lies the problem, the food was so good you couldn't stop with one serving, or with one piece of chicken, or with one serve of vegetables. If you had the ability to stop gorging yourself like a normal person you could walk away with only spending 45 pesos ($1.00) but do you think anyone who went there ever could? The answer was no.
Oh you needed to order breakfast the night before! To this day they were the best pancakes I have ever eaten! Her breakfasts were so notorious that most of the the IDC crew would spend the first part of the morning on her balcony freaking out about the next exam or recovering from the night before whilst scoffing down 3 or 4 pancakes. At only 15 pesos each they are the cheapest pancakes we have ever seen, so cheap in fact, that we asked her to increase the price to 20 peso as we felt bad ...or it could have been the rhum talking.
But in between all this study and research, we still managed to have a few fun dives. Every time I dived with the thresher sharks I would have one swim by less than 5 meters in front of me, apparently that is rare, but it happened to me on at least 6 dives in a row. Robyn however didn't have the same luck, and every dive that she missed, her colleagues would surface saying they saw a manta or a thresher shark doing back flips or something along those lines.
After 3 weeks of doing my IDC the day (2 days actually) had finally come to do my final exams. It was stressful but because our course director had helped us prepare for these 2 days for the last 3 weeks, we felt we couldn't go wrong.
But believe it or not, as we readied ourselves for this stressful experience Malapascua was hit by a typhoon. But as they say “the show must go on.” Whoever said that had clearly not tried to demonstrate an unconscious diver skill, which involves trying to give emergency breathes to an unconscious victim whilst trying to tow them to a boat! Otherwise they would have changed it to “the show is able to stop during a typhoon!” But alas we continued and after a wet, cold and uncomfortable 2 days, we all passed the exam. That night our dive centre decided to throw us a “congrats for not dying in the typhoon” party (aka a congrats for passing party).
For the record let me say this- divers know how to drink. The majority of dive masters and instructors are alcoholic, chain smoking, caffeine addicted grumpy surly types who don't want to know you unless you want to spend money at their shop/resort/centre. If you do want to spend money there, hey well you have just found a new best friend, wait your credit card got declined..... ahh back to grumpy surly guy again.. (But we have met some who do not fit the above stereotype of instructors or dive masters)
Back to the party, it was loose! Like any party with an open bar normally is. Enough said about that!
After a good 2 day recovery, one of our good friends Nathan (who we had previously worked with in Australia and traveled with in Borneo) decided to join us.
Whenever Rob, Nathan and I get together there is generally a lot of booze and a lot of shenanigans followed by a lot of exercise. Not necessarily the best combination but it seems to be the way things roll for us. It was Nathan's first time in the Philippines and we were pretty keen to show him what we had learnt and discovered during the last 4 weeks.
And so, our last week on Malapascua was spent doing the touristy things - drinking, diving, eating and a lot of lounging around with a bit of exercise for good mix (to which the locals would often stare and laugh and probably say things like “stupid fat white people,why do they do stupid things like lifting a brick over his head repeatedly?”).
When we had both finished our courses, it was time for us to depart (with Nathan as had decided he was going to travel with us for a few more weeks) and we said our goodbyes to our new friends.
Before going our separate ways, some of us from the IDC crew got together and put money in to pay one of the locals to make mama a sign for her restaurant, so if you are ever on Malapascua and you need an amazing meal, look out for “Jopias and Mamas Hilltop Eatery” in the village, you wont be disappointed.
A big congrats to Fiona (dirty tree and a turd), Tony (leave your guns outside!), Joseph (can I sell you an SMB), Kylie (mum) and Ben (it's ok i'm drunk). You all will be fantastic instructors!!
Also a big thanks to Rich (if it's before midday it's too early unless there is gin involved) our Course Director. Without your help and guidance we probably all would have been found curled up in a ball in the corner muttering something about selling PADI products.
Also a big thanks to Rich (if it's before midday it's too early unless there is gin involved) our Course Director. Without your help and guidance we probably all would have been found curled up in a ball in the corner muttering something about selling PADI products.
