Dive Review of Sea Explorers Philippines/Ocean Vida Beach and Dive Resort in
Philippines/Malapascua

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Sea Explorers Philippines/Ocean Vida Beach and Dive Resort: "Thresher Sharks at Malapascua did not disappoint", Jan, 2024, by Rene Cote, VA, US ( Sr. Reviewer 11 reports with 16 Helpful votes). Report 12873 has 3 Helpful votes.
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Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity	N/A
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	The threshers were cool!!!!! I stayed at Ocean Vida Beach & Dive Resort, and their dive operation is Sea Explorers located in the same main building. [ocean-vida.com link] [sea-explorers.com link] I specifically went to Malapascua to film thresher sharks. I had not previously seen this species of shark so I wanted to see that they were all about. The threshers did not disappoint! The day starts early to go to Kimud Shoal. We mustered at 05:00 each morning for the shark dive; the night before divers ordered their breakfast sandwich and the little brown bags were ready for us at 5AM. When everyone was accounted for, we took a small boat out to the big banca boat (the kind with bamboo outriggers). The dive boat had plenty of room on deck, and a covered area if it’s windy/raining. There was water, and hot water for coffee and tea, and bananas and crackers on board; there’s also a “bathroom” that dumps directly into the ocean. This particular boat had just been updated or was new… so new that the deck lights had not been connected yet… we boarded by flashlight and checked our gear the same way before motoring out. The ride out was about 45 minutes. Kimud Shoal can be very busy, as that is THE place where the thresher sharks consistently come to. If you are one of the first boats there, you tie off on the moorings closer to the wall where the sharks typically hang out; if you arrive later, you have to tie off to a boat in front of you. One day there must have been nearly a dozen boats there with at least 3 rows of 3 boats tied together… I can only imagine how much air those divers used swimming from the last boat in line to where the wall is; the furthest we ever were was 2nd in line. There was some current, which is a bigger challenge when holding onto a large camera rig, but once we got to the wall it was negligible. It was a little frustrating for me though because I never started the dives with a full tank, so sucking up valuable air kicking against a moderate current added a wee bit of stress. (more on the tank fills later in this review). On my very first giant stride entry, my guide looked at me and said “see you on the bottom” and pointed to where a thresher shark was. The threshers just swim around, often going out in the blue and coming back. There are some cleaning stations there, and when conditions are right and there aren’t a lot of divers hovering over it, the sharks will just come in and circle it over and over again. On my last dive I was the only one near a cleaning station and the thresher didn’t seem to care. When it was done getting the little nasties nibbled off its skin it came right over me, barely a foot away, and bumped my camera… even then it hardly cared, making only a slight twitch and then continuing on a slow swim away. There weren’t dozens and dozens of threshers, and sometimes viz wasn’t so great (I deleted every clip I filmed on the first day of diving), but when viz was ok to good, and there weren’t a lot of divers, the threshers would come in real close… the trick is to not freak them out, be still, let them do their thing – they WILL come close (it doesn’t hurt to not make bubbles either…). It can be VERY crowded. On m 3rd and final day of diving I was in for a treat – the shop had decided to make this a 3-tank dive at the shoal; which meant that after the typical 2-tanks, most boats would be leaving. My first dive was good, not too many divers in the water and visibility was fair enough; luckily it was also sunny that day so that helped. The second dive was mostly worthless. By this time the area was full of boats and divers. I saw probably a dozen divers all scrunched together near a cleaning station… no threshers showed up… go figure. After an uneventful 2nd dive and surface interval, more than half the boats had departed and I plunged back in. For a while my guide and I were alone, viz had improved, and the sharks were less skittish. I ended up in an area that a couple of threshers just kept circling, running their pattern. Sometimes they turned to my left, sometimes to my right, and a couple of times directly over my head. It is near here that I parked myself near a cleaning station and filmed the shark that bumped into my camera rig. This dive was a true quality dive, and it was also my last dive of the trip! In addition to the thresher shark trip, the dive shop offers several dive trips to sites other than the shoal where the thresher sharks are including 3-tank dives to another small island, another to an area supposedly with lots of colorful corals and even some macro diving. I focused on only doing the shark dives though on my first day I did the “tiger shark” and thresher shark dive in the morning and the macro dive in the afternoon. In my opinion, the “tiger shark” dive is to be avoided, there’s nothing there except the slight chance a tiger “might” pass by at a long distance. The macro dive was “ok”, but visibility was bad (close to shore) and frankly I just wanted to film the sharks, so I only did that the next 2 days. Tank Fills: As I previously mentioned, NONE of my tanks ever had 3000 psi. The shop ‘hot fills’ the tanks to 215 bar and once the tanks cool down divers are lucky if they have 200 bar…And by the way 3000 psi = 206.8 bar, so 200 bar is NOT a full tank. My tanks were typically 3-8% underfilled, and on one dive I started with 2760 PSI. The other concern I had was on the boat; at 05:00 I boarded the boat for the first time, no one provided me a boat safety briefing, no information about life jackets, DAN kit, etc… notta. My last day I started to look around more and where the sign points to the “Fire Extinguisher” I found a can of Glade air freshener, and the wooden box nearby was empty (the size that holds a fire extinguisher). I even walked over to the captain’s area, peeked around a bit, but never found a fire extinguisher. The diver staff, support crew and my guide were helpful and good natured. The resort: The food was good, my garden view room was comfortable (there are oceanfront rooms available), it had a small stocked fridge, a kettle for coffee or tea, a little bit of potable water (you could buy more for 50 pesos) and the A/C “mostly” kept up with the heat and humidity (ceiling fan helped). The hotel staff was very friendly Getting to Malapascua was an ordeal. I was coming from Hawaii so my travel included stops in Tokyo, then Manila, then domestic flight to Cebu followed by a 4 hour van ride to the northern tip of Cebu and then a 40ish minute water taxi to the beach in front of my resort. It was a grueling 40ish hours of travel… a smarter me would have stopped in Cebu and spent one night recovering… but smarter me didn’t come on this trip. Here’ my 3-minute trip video: [youtube.com link]
Websites	Sea Explorers Philippines Ocean Vida Beach and Dive Resort
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	Over 1000 dives
Where else diving	Florida, Morehead City NC, Hawaii, most of the Caribbean including Cuba, Cenotes MX, Sea of Cortez, Socorro, Okinawa, French Polynesia, Komodo Islands, Bali, Raja Ampat, Maldives, Palau, Yap, Fiji, Philippines
Closest Airport	Cebu	Getting There	Fly to Cebu. Then 3.5-4 hour van to Maya at the norther tip of Cebu. Then 30-40 minute water taxi to Malapascua (directly to the resort)
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, cloudy	Seas	calm, choppy
Water Temp	79-83°F / 26-28°C	Wetsuit Thickness	5
Water Visibility	20-50 Ft/ 6-15 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	The dives were mostly at 40-60 feet; so with nitrox air supply was the limiting factor. Photographers may not use strobes or video lights
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	Lots	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	None	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals	N/A	Tropical Fish	N/A
Small Critters	N/A	Large Fish	N/A
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities
UW Photo Comments	NO camera room at the dive shop; they did have rinse tanks. Divers brought their cameras back to the room. Decent space on the boat to put cameras IF there are only a couple of photographers

Report currently has 3 Helpful votes

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Dive Review of Sea Explorers Philippines/Ocean Vida Beach and Dive Resort in Philippines/Malapascua

Sea Explorers Philippines/Ocean Vida Beach and Dive Resort: "Thresher Sharks at Malapascua did not disappoint", Jan, 2024,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Sea Explorers Philippines/Ocean Vida Beach and Dive Resort in
Philippines/Malapascua