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Pencil Urchin

CEBU

Philippines

Malapascua Island is famous for its thresher sharks.  Monad Shoal is a large seamount that hosts several pelagic thresher shark cleaning stations.  The sharks come in in the early morning for a bit of a spruce up.  The cleaning stations are quite deep (30m plus), so the dives are generally short.  On the 2 dives that we did, the sharks were shy and the viz was poor, so no great photos, just great memories.

The muck diving in Malapascua made up for the lack of thresher shark images.  We were particularly impressed with the night diving.  A lot of the images in the gallery were taken just grubbing about in the sand in about 15m of water.

Moalboal is famous for its sardine run.  The diving is almost entirely wall diving.  A dramatic vertical wall runs parallel to the beach and drops off into the abyss about 20m from the water's edge.  The wall is home to a resident school of sardines large enough to block out the sun.

Oslob is famous for its whale sharks.  Swimming with them is highly controversial.  The activity is heavily regulated: restricted numbers and timing; no fins; no touching; no chasing; no sunscreen; no propellers.  The sharks are free to come and go as they please.  Local fishermen feed the sharks krill that they would eat naturally.  There is evidence that feeding the sharks is altering their behaviour, but 10 years ago, the sharks were being slaughtered because they were competing with the fishermen for food.  Now, the sharks bring tourists that boost the local economy and provide funding for schools, roads and other infrastructure.

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