THE first time I was scuba diving along an enormous coral reef colony, I felt like I was hovering beside an underwater hill with branching corals like trees and thousands of fishes instead of birds. I had goosebumps realizing that this colony is older than my generation. That was one important moment in my journey as a naturalist -- being in awe of a world that’s so vital to our survival but we don’t get to see often.
In this continuing series, let’s get acquainted with the Philippines’ diving treasures we hope all Filipinos experience for themselves. For how can we be proud of our natural and cultural heritage if we do not know what we have?
Malapascua
About seven kilometers from the northern tip of Cebu is the island of Malapascua, known to be the only place in the world where sightings of thresher sharks can be guaranteed almost daily usually around sunrise.
Malapascua has over 20 other different dive sites, but its most famous is Monad Shoal, an island submerged sitting on the lip of a drop-off that descends 200 meters into the abyss. As a result of its location, deep swimmers (and elusive animals!) like threshers, devil and eagle rays, and other sharks come up to the shoal as their cleaning station.
Gato Island is another Malapascua dive site where you could easily find banded sea snakes, white-tip reef sharks, and pygmy seahorses, among the common species sightings. You almost have to prepare for different shark species swimming right at you.
And not to end the discussion of these elasmobranchs, Kemod Shoal near Monad is known to be a destination for hammerheads. On a very lucky dive, a school of up to 200 hammerheads can even swim by.
Malapascua has been recently brought to global attention when the protective listing of thresher sharks was being campaigned at the 2016 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) during the annual Conference of Parties in South Africa. The campaign was successful, and Malapascua continues to be a destination where an encounter with the thresher sharks could inspire divers into caring about this wildlife.
Tubbataha
Tubbataha is often described as the dive trip of the lifetime or the ultimate Philippine diving experience. Tubbataha Reefs National Park is declared a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1993, and it covers a little over 97,000 hectares of protected atolls, lagoons, and coral islands.
Its distance of 150 kilometers from the nearest city with an airport, Puerto Princesa, the capital of Palawan province, makes it relatively difficult to access but keeping it a pristine habitat for over 1,000 species of corals, fish, sharks, cetaceans, and reptiles, with a considerable number of them considered to be endangered.
The biodiversity and magnitude of the ecosystems at Tubbataha are compared to the Great Barrier Reef and tell one of the most magnificent stories of marine conservation in the country.
Diving in Tubbataha requires some experience, joining liveaboards, and a strong commitment to witness this natural wonder, as trips here have to be thoroughly planned. In exchange, Tubbataha is where one’s diving dreams are fulfilled.
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A friend of mine said that her dream is for every Filipino to have dived at least once in their life, considering our country is an archipelago found at the center of the marine biodiversity, the “Coral Triangle.” I hope that dream comes true.