As we boarded the late night Cebu Pacific flight to Cebu City, we were half expecting the flight attendants to perform the flight safety dance, but it turned out that the stance was cancelled by management altogether due to various complaints. We finally reached Cebu City in the wee hours of the morning after a 1h delay, and finally met up with Mel, Jaz and yl.

The bus ride to the jetty was 3h long, good enough for a nap, but I was too excited to rest. Somehow I expected Philippines to be different from the rest of SEA that I've seen. Perhaps I thought it was poorer (than Msia and Thailand), less orderly, and with more Spanish and American influence. The rural area was largely still very rural Indo feel, and the roads to the jetty was actually tarmac, probably because there was enough tourist money for that.

Malapascua was just 1h away from the main Cebu island, and the moment I reached, we were invited by lots of houseflies, a vast difference from the Sipadan experience. That's for the best resort on Malapascua Island... Tired from the travelling, we decided to rest, so that we would have the energy to dive for the next 5 days.

We had to wake up at 4-ish everyday so that we can make it in time to see the thresher sharks at their cleaning station in Monad Shoal. After 2 failed attempts, we tried our luck at Kemod Shoal, and alas we found 2 thresher sharks! They were circling around symmetrical as if they were mating, for a good 10 minutes. Then finally they circled closer towards, but it could also be construed as goodbye, before they swam off.

The night dives were among the most spectacular I've ever seen. Big seahorses, plenty of shrimps, crabs and rather big cuttlefishes! I finally saw for the first time mandarin fishes mating, and it was several pairs and several times per pair as well. Firstly they swim up with lips locked rather deliberately and purposely, then suddenly they split very quickly and swim back to the nest. As the divemaster shines his torch on the spot where they split, we see strings of eggs floating in the water.

Gato island and other divesites also had plenty of lovely marine life - seasnakes, coral crabs, eels, frogfish, leaffish, lionfish, scorpionfish, pufferfish, cuttlefish and reef sharks.

Spot the spider crab

Nudibranch

The biggest seahorses I've seen in my life are in Malapascua

Crab!

Lionfish

Thresher shark up close and personal! Check out its friendly round eyes!

the very rare Pygmy seahorse. The flash was not diffused properly, but I finally managed to get this (acceptable) shot after several tries on Mel's camera which refused to function at 20m.

The beautiful Calanggaman Island...

Drinking with our divemaster Wilmar...

Jaz attempting to jump...

Up!

Saying farewell to the island...

All mud splatters on the back of my legs as the van broke down, there was a traffic jam and we couldn't get a cab. This meant that we had to walk to our hostel on the badly built roads of Cebu City.

See how small the tarsier monkeys are!

Stupid poses at Chocolate Hills