Malapascua Island/ Philippines

Malapascua Island:

The beginning of our Philippines journey began by taking a 4 hr plane ride to cebu (from 9pm-1am), then taking a 4 hour car ride to the small boat that would take us to Malapascua. We had to wait a few hours in the car though because our boat would not arrive until 6am. Keith and I, along with our driver, took a much needed nap in the car. At 6am, we took a 20 minute boat ride. First we went on a lil canoe boat, which transferred us onto a bigger boat. We arrived onto Malapascua island early in the morning, around 6:30am. As we got closer to the island, we saw our pretty Blue Corals resort that we were staying at. Luckily, it was located literally right next to Thresher Shark Dives, the scuba diving company which I got my open water PADI course in.

We first checked into our place, which we found really comfortable, clean and with upbeat, very friendly staff. Our view from our porch was the ocean and a private lil beach…this was a surprise! It was beautiful and the room was so big with 2 big beds. We were so excited to be there! We then went down to Thresher Sharks and met the owner (who was from England) and also spoke with my main master diving instructor who had a nice Italian accent (which I struggled with for the first day!). He was very kind and understood about my situation of not sleeping much the past night because of all the traveling, so instead of our intended start time at 9am, he let me go take a 2 hour nap and come back by 11:30. This helped a lot!

I was still so nervous about the class though. Keith and I were supposed to take it together and we had prepared by taking the 25 hour online portion of the class before coming (and yes I said 25 hrs!!). However, only a few weeks before our vacation, Keith twisted his ankle while playing basketball and he found out later that he had torn ligaments. This means he’s on crutches for about 3 months until recovery! Poor Keith! He had to cancel his basketball tournament, beach volleyball tournament, marathon, ultimate frisbee tournament, and a few other events that are here on Jeju. But he’s staying positive and finding plenty of other hobbies to keep him busy. But, back to the scuba diving….
There was so much to learn for the class. For example, we learned about all the equipment. We had to learn how to set up the equipment and assemble it correctly before we headed out to the water. The equipment includes the air tank, regulators, pressure gauge, snorkel, weight belt, BCD jacket, etc. Once I completed this task, we headed to the water and began three days of intense skills and underwater training.

The first day I had three instructors with me and since Keith had to cancel the class, I was the only student in the class. One of the teacher’s was from England. Her name was Alex and she was only with me one day to help me feel more comfortable. She was actually there because she was getting her master diving certificate. Then the main instructor, Alex, was from Italy. He was great. He really knew his stuff but also had high expectations from me. I had to tell him how horrible my memory was so he could believe that I actually did study through the online course before coming. And then the 3rd instructor was Steve, who was a really nice guy from Canada. He made sure I understood everything that the Italian instructor was telling me (haha) and he was just a great friend throughout the whole three days, calming me down when I felt a lil anxious.

Throughout the three days, I went diving 4 times, each time going a little deeper into the water….first at 6 meters, then 8, then 12, and then 17. I learned many skills like taking off your mask under water (in case our mask ever gets bumped off by another fin or in case water gets in), learning to get the water out of your mask, learning how to use the compass, taking out the regulator and using your buddy’s emergency regulator, using the snorkel, practicing buoyancy (balancing), learning how to squeeze your nose and blow if you feel pressure in your ears, etc. There was a lot of safety precautions to learn and a lot overall to remember. However, once you learn everything, a fun dive is actually very easy and relaxing. My instructor, Alex, told me that diving was his yoga. It always was relaxing and a lazy sport to him.

While I was diving for the three days, Keith kept himself very busy! The first day was spent just relaxing and drinking tons of Sam Miguels However, by the second day, Keith was getting antsy and decided to crutch around the entire island! He came back that evening with tons of photos to show me that he took on my camera! He met so many families, who invited him inside their homes and cooked a meal for him. He also discovered different beaches and resorts, met children at the schools and some children went with him to go see the lighthouse. The pictures he took were great! I especially liked the one he took of him lying in a hammock with his foot up, drinking a beer! Some locals that he met even gave him special medical/ healing plants that he wrapped around his foot. They actually worked and made the swelling go down after a few days! Luckily, Keith was able to bring extra leaves with him for the rest of our trip. I was very proud of Keith’s crutching abilities! Good job babe! And then on the 3rd day, Keith’s friend that he met took him on a boat ride around the island. He was able to go fishing and hang out with the locals and again took some great photos while out on sea.

That 3rd day, I had completed my certificate and everyone at the dive shop cheered for me as I took a “Shresher Shark shot” which verified that I really am a scuba diver now! It was a great night and I met a lot of cool people at the dive shop throughout the past few days. I would love to go back sometime and swim with the sharks, since I ended up being so exhausted from the 3 day course. I also didn’t have enough time for that dive because you have to wait a certain amount of hours to fly and our flight was that next evening. But I was ok with missing out on the shark dive, since you don’t always see the sharks. It takes some divers a bunch of times to go out before they actually spot one. Maybe one day in the future I’ll be back for some shark spotting.


On the final day on Malapascua Island, I layed out on the beach and just relaxed. Some kids came over to me and sold me shells that they had collected (the money went towards their school) and I had a nice time talking with them about their school and future. And then as we got on the boat that took us to the mainland of Cebu, someone had to literally carry Keith onto shore from the boat because it was a rocky cliff that we had to step on. I took a funny photo of that! Keith looked like a little kid on the man’s back!

And then we were off to more crazy traveling, the Keith style…


We took a 4 hour bus, stopped by the hospital before the airport to pick up new crutches (keith’s cheap crutches broke while he was crutching around the island!), then took an hr. plane ride to Manila, then took an 8 hr. overnight bus to the mountains/ Banaue area, then took a 2 hr. jeebne, then a 45 min. bike/cart to the top of the mountains where The Native Village was (our guesthouse), which was near the rice terraces. We were exhausted!!!