Took the chance to make a short trip to Malapascua during mid-term break. Breaking loose from Covid restrictions made it challenging to book a dive resort, but eventually we managed to book a room with Buena Vida (one of a group of three Vida resorts in Malapascua). It's a spa, really. The operator is Sea Explorers over in Ocean Vida (a 5 min walk to the beach) and also the kitchen. But it wasn't a big deal - the resort is lovely and comfortable. Most days we had a packed breakfast/lunch since we take off for the dives at 5am and return in the early afternoon.
The Food
The kitchen at Ocean Vida is pretty good, with a fair mix of Asian food (which I mostly ordered), like fish or prawn curries with rice (Thai style were good).
They also had Burgers that looked fine, and some pastas and pizza etc. As in most Asian resorts, the fresh fruit was great.
There are a few restaurants along the beach, and several look fine. Some of them are sort of bar-diners, with live music running, and are a bit loud. One day we had dinner at a Pizza place with a wood-fired oven.
They also had a grill, from which we got a nice grilled fish. Eating was no issue. for lunch, on most days we were out on the boat and just had the packed sandwich (salami on baguette).
On the second day, we opted to do one dive at Kimud, and then motor out to Kalanggaman Island where we did two dives. We had a BBQ lunch at the Island (tuna, chicken, etc.), which was decent.
Diving:
The diving was easy, water was 28-deg or warmer in most places, and very little currents (although in the shallow at Gato Island, there was some swell.
We did three days of diving.
Day 1. The boat took off around 5:15am for Kimud shoal (the threshers used to be at Monad shoal before, but now they show up at Kimud).
It's a 45 minute ride, and there were around 10 boats, so, maybe 100 divers (but we reach staggered, so perhaps 30-40 at a time). However, it didn't feel crowded since
it's a rather large flat reef with drop-offs all around, and the sharks come along the edge. Beginner's luck - we had threshers on both morning dives.
In the afternoon, we made one dive near deep slope (around 15 min by boat from Malapascua).
On day 2, same routine to Kimud, but only one dive there (and saw no threshers). Then we chugged out another 30 min to the Island of Kalanggaman. Had a nice BBQ lunch and walked around the island.
We made a dive there, but it wasn't too special, the usual reef scenes. After a rather choppy 75 min ride back to Malapascua, we rested and then did a late afternoon dive also near deep slope.
The day 3, we went to Gato Island, and did three dives there, to return back in late-afternoon. Gato is a superb dive area - there is really a lot to see, from nurse sharks, to sleeping white tips, to
a huge variety of macro and other creatures like sea kraits, sea horses, frogfish. If we go again, we'll probably split our days between Kimud and Gato
About the photos
This was my first time with a new rig: a Sony A7 IV in a Nauticam housing and the Sony FE 28-60 lens (which allows me to use the WWL-1 B wide angle wet lens). There is a lot to learn with the new rig, so I didn't try out the WWL-1. Also, I used a single strobe, my trusty old Inon Z220, in slave mode via the Nauticam trigger. I had the attachments for my Subsee +10 macro, but somehow the macro performance (me or camera) was poor. If you'd like to get the originals of any of these images, email me.
