Diving with Devocean Divers on Malapascua

Nearly everybody comes to Malapascua for the same thing: the thresher shark. A few kilometres offshore lies Monad Shoal, the edge of an underwater plateau where these sharks rise at first light to be cleaned by small reef fish. It is one of a handful of places on earth where that happens every single morning.

Devocean Divers sits in the middle of Bounty Beach, the same stretch of sand as most of the hostels and restaurants. It is a PADI 5 Star IDC dive centre, the highest PADI recognition there is, and a Green Fins member, which is the programme that actually measures what a dive shop does about its reef and its waste. They work with a maximum of four students per course, and often it is just you.

See Devocean Divers

The thresher sharks of Monad Shoal

This is the dive you came for. Devocean leaves at around five in the morning and the boat ride takes about twenty five minutes, which is exactly long enough for a coffee while the sun comes up over the water.

The cleaning stations sit at about twenty eight metres. You go down, take your place behind the line that marks the no go zone, and wait. Thresher sharks reach six metres, a good part of which is that unmistakable scything tail fin. Eagle rays and mantas come through regularly, and in season there are schooling hammerheads at nearby Kimud Shoal.

There are no guarantees, and Devocean is straight about that: arriving earlier or later makes no difference. If you have the days, go two mornings in a row.

Monad Shoal is an official shark and ray sanctuary. The rules are covered in your briefing: no flash, no reef hooks, no touching, move slowly and never swim after a shark. A voluntary contribution of ₱50 per dive goes to the protection scheme the local dive shops run.

Only have your Open Water? You will do a Deep Adventure dive or your full Advanced first, because this dive goes below the eighteen metres your Open Water covers.

Learning to dive on Malapascua

You can get in the water here with no experience. A Discover Scuba is the introduction without committing to a course. Children can do a Bubble Maker from eight years old and start a Junior Open Water from ten.

For a certification that stays valid, the PADI Open Water is the obvious step: four dives in the sea, and if you do the theory at home through eLearning you can walk off the beach with your card in three days. You need to be ten or older, reasonably healthy, and able to swim 200 metres. There are no fixed start dates: you start when you are there.

If you have enough days on Malapascua we would do the Open Water rather than just a taster dive. The certification does not expire, so the rest of your trip through the Philippines opens up afterwards. After that you can climb the whole PADI ladder here: Advanced, Rescue, specialties, Divemaster and even instructor, because this is an IDC centre.

Fun diving around Malapascua

The thresher shark is the headline, and the reef around the island is every bit as good. Devocean runs up to four dives a day, from sunrise to after dark.

A few of their regular sites:

• Lighthouse, 5 to 10 metres: mandarinfish, seahorses, and bobtail squid after sunset
• Ka Osting, 6 to 15 metres: ghost pipefish, frogfish and mantis shrimp
• Chocolate Island, 8 to 15 metres: nudibranchs, flatworms and, with luck, a blue ringed octopus
• Deep Slope and North Point, 11 to 23 metres: pygmy seahorses, flamboyant cuttlefish and green turtles
• Deep Rock, 14 to 28 metres: soft coral, barracuda and a great many nudibranchs
• Gato Island: caves and tunnels with white tip reef sharks

If you like small things you are in the right place: Malapascua is a macro paradise. Nitrox 32 percent is available if you have the certification, and dive computers can be hired. Kalanggaman, the sandbar island with its long white spit, is on the programme too, for a day of swapping diving for being above the surface.

How the dive centre works

Devocean runs two roomy bangkas, the Philippine boats with bamboo outriggers on either side. On shore there is an air conditioned classroom, a rinse tank, a separate spot for your camera and a briefing area with changing rooms; coffee, tea, water and wifi are free. There are twenty complete rental sets from Cressi, Scubapro and Mares, replaced every three years, with AL80 tanks that take both DIN and INT, so your own regulator fits.

Two things worth knowing. Devocean does not dive with mandatory decompression stops, and the nearest recompression chamber is in Cebu City, so leave enough time after your last dive before you get on a plane. The water is 25 to 27 degrees from December to February and 27 to 30 the rest of the year, which makes a full 3 to 5 millimetre wetsuit about right.

Coffee and a massage, same owner

Right next to the dive shop is Devozen, which as far as we are concerned is the best coffee on the island, with sandwiches and burgers alongside. Useful for the early starts: the boat to Monad Shoal leaves at around five in the morning, so breakfast naturally shifts to whenever you get back.

There is also Devocean Spa and Massage, and it is the sort of thing you wish you had booked sooner. A few days of carrying a tank around shows up in your shoulders. You lie out of the sun on a proper massage table with a face cradle, in an air conditioned room. One tip: leave at least six hours between your last dive and your massage, because your body is still off gassing the nitrogen it absorbed underwater. Dive in the morning and the evening is fine.

What it costs

Devocean does not publish a price list. You email them with what you want to do and how many days you have, and you get a rate built around your plan, because a single shark dive prices differently from a three day course. You pay on the spot in Philippine pesos. Ask about group rates if there are several of you, and say so if you are already a PADI professional.

Why we recommend this

The thresher shark is on the list of nearly every diver heading to the Philippines, and that is exactly what makes the choice of dive shop matter. At five in the morning, at twenty eight metres, in a protected area, you want somebody beside you who knows what they are doing.

Devocean has the highest PADI recognition, is a Green Fins member and keeps the groups small, with a maximum of four students. That combination is what we look at: safe, unhurried and respectful of the reef everybody came to see.

Rebels on the Road discount

Diving with Devocean Divers? Give the code REBELSONTHEROAD as soon as you email them or reserve your dives. You only get the discount if you mention it yourself: forget it and you pay the standard rate, and there is nothing to be done afterwards. Put it in your first message along with your dates and what you want to do.

Diving on Malapascua: what should you expect?

Staying two to three days? Then we would go out to Monad Shoal at least one morning. Two mornings in a row makes your odds of seeing a thresher considerably better.

If you only have your Open Water, plan for a Deep Adventure dive or your Advanced first, because that is what gets you down to the sharks. Budget an extra day for it.

Put your highest certification, your logged dives and when you last dived into your first email, along with the code REBELSONTHEROAD. Without that last bit you miss the discount.

See Devocean Divers