Before I forget the details of my recent trip to Malapascua Island, Phillippines, I should state that I got here via Cebu Pacific airlines, a budget carrier in the wee hours of the morning (4am to be roughly exact :) ) on a nice balmy Thursday. Mactan international airport does not really have anything much so I just go some local breakfast and sat down to finish my National Geographic magazine while waiting for my dive buddy and transport to Maya harbour.
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| The boats they use in the Phillipines |
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Me smiling cause I am so happy!
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| The beach near our dive center. |
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| Gato Island. We saw a pair of white tip sharks sleeping in an underwater cave here |
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| View of the beautiful sky |
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| Sunset picture by my dive buddy |
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| Thresher shark divers, where we signed up for dives. Nice folks there. |
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| Beach is usually empty since the guys who come here go diving all day |
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| Another nice shot. |
On one of the days we were there, we interacted with the local kids when they were picking starfish and eating sea urchin. It was after a very fulfilling early morning dive to see the thresher sharks at local fish cleaning station. We saw three that morning!
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| Sea stars! |
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| Baby blue ringed octopus |
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| He threw something I don't know what |
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| A close up shot of the octopus. It changes colour when touched! |
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| Conch |
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| What happens when you flip a starfish over? |
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| They flip back! |
Actually most of the interesting stuff I saw was underwater, especially during night dives. I personally think you see a whole lot of activity at night, especially from crabs, prawns, octopus, cuttlefish, squid and mandarin fish. Pretty amazing stuff. On the last day of our holiday, we had a short trip to check out Cebu city. We did not have much time but there wasn't anything to see anyway so we just had a short stop to check out their main cathedral and the Santo Niño basillica.
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| Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral. Wedding mass on Monday |
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| Santo Niño basillica front gate |
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| Santo Niño de Cebú, Holy child of Cebu |
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| Magellan's travel path |
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| One of the many christmas trees in Cebu |
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| Inside the basilica |
