Malapascua is famous for its diving and a load of people -me incuded- are here for lots if it.
You can find reputable diveshops lined next to each other on the beach offering courses for all levels. We did quite a bit of research among them before settling with the malapascua beach divers. They have a few boats with great crew and inhouse divemaster Erwin along with his old classmate Felix are sure to find you all the best spots and the most to see. They were both born on the island and having previously worked as boat crew and now already years as divemasters know these waters inside out.
I felt comfortable and safe diving with them and they had great stories to tell afterwards about the spots visited.
Tresher sharks are the celebrities of the island's divesites and one can spot them almost on every dive made near to their cleaning station, about 30 minutes boatride from the beach. Most of the dives are made dropping out to the big blue along a bouy-line, working your way around the divesite and coming back the same way. Some of the more shallow sites you can dive in no particulardirection and get the boat to pick you up when you surface.
For getting most out of diving here, I recommend completing the Advanced Open Water course either in advance or on the island because the most interesting sites are well below the OWD-licensed 18 meters. You also need some experience in entering the sites in between tides, when the currents can be quite strong. I really enjoyed some of the rougher rides when you flap like a flag on the line and then it's calm and beautiful down below.
There are great sites around the island, my favourites are Bantique with its seahorses and Deep Rock where schools of batfish and sometimes squids keep you company on the safety stop on the line. We also made daytrips to Gato island, about a 70 minute ride from malapascua with reefsharks sleeping under overhangs and a nice swim-through on the east side of it.
For a bit of safe extra excitement try out the sunset dive -a shallow dive just a bit off the beach where you can see mandarin fishes mating and so many seahorses you can't count. I'm also a big nudibranch fan and saw a huge variety in size, shape and color around this site.
Calaggaman island a bit further (about 2 hours by boat) is a paradise of its own. A corgeous atoll (someone with the correct technical term may correct me..) protruding from the sea with a breath-taking beach and amazing diving. Calaggaman is one of the trips i'd recommend to everyone. The corals start shallow enough for snorkelers to enjoy them as well and the beach is safe for the little ones of the family to have a great time too. You can pre-order a beach barbeque lunch prepared during your first dive so you come up to have some delicious fish or anything else, spend your surface interwall exploring the island and hop back to water. The coral garden on top of the atoll starts at about 4-5 meters and on the edge droppes to a straight wall going down to apparently a few hundred meters so divers with any level of experience can enjoy it all the same.
I'm sure the diving in Malapascua is nothing like it used to be 10 years ago, and still the bangs of dynamite fishing interrupt your dive from time to time. I just hope the local government would realise the importance of preservance before it's way too late.
I have recently learned that the owners of beach divers have decided to let the divemasters Felix and Erwin to go and diveshop manager Gregory Maciejowski has resigned due to professional disputes. In future references i recommend googling their names to see where they work and Greg said he's looking into putting up his own shop. :)
