Malapascua Day 4 & 5

Day 4

Eric and I both woke up around 4:30 this morning and then were awake on and off until we finally got up around 6 a.m.  It is hard to turn off the body clock once it gets set. 

We headed to breakfast around 7 a.m. and had the French toast again.  This time I got mine with bananas and a fresh mango on the side and Eric got his with diced mango on top—either version is delicious. 

After breakfast we got our gear ready for the first dive at 9:30 which was to Chocolate Island.  This was by far the best dive of the trip so far.  We must have seen just about everything but sharks on this dive.  We saw our first ever flamboyant cuttlefish, regular cuttlefish, nudibranchs, a pair of black hairy frogfish, an orange frogfish, a sea moth fish, and many others I can’t recall (typing this after having two mango daquiri’s at happy hour—it’s a wonder I can remember anything).  After a great dive, we made our way back to the resort for lunch and some lounging before our afternoon dive at 1:30. 

The dive at 1:30 was to Devil Ray corner—a dive we have never done before.  It is actually out at Monad Shoal, which is where they do the morning thresher shark dives.  On the way to the drop off for the dive, we saw a bunch of Devil Rays flapping their wings on the surface of the water.  We were hoping when we got in the water at the dive site we would see some.  Unfortunately, we didn’t see much of anything on the dive but a couple of larger cuttlefish. 

After our afternoon dip, we headed back to the resort for dinner and reviewing our photos and videos for today.  My camera and housing are working out quite well so far.  It is super easy to white balance and the color and clarity seem to be really good. 

We are going to crawl into bed early tonight as we have to get up around 4 a.m. for the Thresher Shark dive at 5 a.m.  Eric and I are signed up to do three dives tomorrow and Eric is also going to do the night dive.

Day 5

Today was an early morning.  We were up at 4 a.m. to get ready for our 5 a.m. Thresher Shark dive.  The boat headed out just as the sun was coming up.  It is about a 45 minute boat ride to the dive site, but it is a nice ride in the early morning with the sunrise and the ocean breeze. 

It wasn’t too terribly busy at Monad Shoal by the time we got there.  We dove in and there was actually quite a bit of current.  Not too long after we got in we saw a couple Threshers, but the visibility was poor so we were unable to get any decent video or photos.  We swam around for a while hoping to see some other Threshers or something else like a ray, etc., but we only saw one other Thresher.

After everyone was back on the boat, we headed back to the resort for breakfast.  We had a short rest before the next dive scheduled for 9:30 to Chocolate Island.  We had done this dive yesterday and it was the best dive we have done so far, so we were anxious to do it again. 

We headed out to Chocolate Island, which is about a 30 minute boat ride away.  We dove in and right after our entry there was a very large sea snake hunting and feeding.  That is the first sea snake I have ever seen in the water.  I was able to get some video of it.  We managed to find the orange frogfish again and some other interesting critters.  At the end of the dive, as we were finishing our safety stop, we saw another sea snake surface for air and then dive back down. 

After the dive, we headed back to the resort to have lunch before our next dive to Deep Slope at 1:30 p.m.  We had done this dive the other day as well and found a lot of neat stuff.  This dive it was just our guide and Eric and me.  We managed to find the pigmy seahorse that we had seen the other day, multiple types of shrimp, and of course nudibranchs, as usual. 

After another good dive, we came back and had a bite to eat at the restaurant before Eric headed out again for the evening/night dive at 5:45.  While Eric was out diving I sat at the restaurant and talked with a couple from Oregon that we have done some diving with and typed up the blog for the day.