“Philippines 🇵🇭 Cebu, Negros Oriental Island; Dumagurte Town, Sibonga Town, Dalaguete Town, Oslob, Sumilon Island, Daanabantayan, Talisay Beach, and Malapascua ~Scuba Diving with Whale Sharks and Thresher Sharks!”
For some reason, my Philippine blogs from April of 2019 have gone missing, so I am re-posting a single blog with photos at this time, and trying to remember and re-write info, while I work to recover my writing….the only photos that are not easily accessible are ones fI took with my cell phone. Those are on a thumb drive, stored in a box, at my house in California.
List of Traveling Points:
~Manila, Cebu Island, Oslob, Sumilon Island, Negros Oriental Island; Dumaguete Town, Dalaguete Town; Osmena Peak, Sibonga Town, Daanbantayan, Talisay Beach and Malapascua Island.
While in The Philippines 🇵🇭, we moved by way of…..Plane ✈️, Taxi 🚕 Car 🚘, Boat Ferry ⛴ Skiff 🚣♂️, Outrigger Boats, Bus 🚌
We had to fly into Manila, Philippine, from Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia (Borneo), before we could catch another flight to Cebu. After our Philippine time, we flew From Cebu, back to Manila, to make our way to Papua New Guineas, for which, after our time there, flew back to Manila, and again to Cebu, to pick up stored luggage we left there, for our trip to Papua New Guinea. It was a lot of extra, but if we stored luggage in Papua New Guinea, we would have never seen it again. We did the wise thing, but with far more steps.
On our trip to visit Cebu Island, plus Malapuscua Island; both North, and South we covered a lot of ground! We enjoyed some interesting town visits, for sure. We loved this island and can easily see us going back one day, to do more diving.
We hired a driver out of Cebu, to get us to all our locations, by land. There were some long day for us, getting where we wanted to go, and sometimes arriving late. Making it to Oslob, after our arrival to Cebu, was no exception, and we got there in time to see the sunset. We would have to wait till morning, to see what everything looked like.
Oslob Beach and Sumilon Island
The waters were pristine!
Sumilon is a small, 24 hectare island (almost 60 acres), located in the southeastern tip of Cebu that is a favorite, with its white sandbar and scuba diving for all enthusiasts. Dubbed the country’s first marine reserve, Sumilon Island is a treasure trove of hundreds of marine flora and fauna species, guaranteed to give a truly unique diving experience. More to that, its white sand beaches are a venue for all beach sports and activities. It was declared a fish sanctuary in 1974, by the initiative of Silliman University Marine Reserve.
Day is done and another gorgeous sunset
Traveling to Negros Oriental Island by Ferry 
Dumaguete Town
We arrived, by ferry, to Dumaguete Town. We wandered around for hours. It’s a lovely Beach Town.
Dalaguete, Cebu
Osmena Peak Hike
Dalaguete is known as the Vegetable Basket of Cebu, for its productive agricultural economy.
Over 3,300 feet above sea level, Osmena Peak stands as the highest point on the island of Cebu
Sibonga Town
While the heart of Cebu City is very noisy, busy and Traffick-y, we were very happy to get out of there to enjoy the quieter outskirts of the island, and loved it.
We traveled to Sibonga Town, which is about 30 miles, south, from Cebu City, and visited a very interesting church-castle.
Simala Shrine, also known as The Monastery of the Holy Eucharist, is situated in Barangay Lindogon, Sibonga, Cebu. It is among the most visited religious places in the Philippines.
The monastery is built and owned by the Marian Monks of Eucharistic Adoration (MMEA) who serve as the guardians of the place. It was around 1997 when the church became popular and was often crowded with people who want to offer prayers and wishes to the Blessed Virgin Mary. At the center outside the church is a landscape where grass forms the words “We Love Mama Mary.”
Once inside the monastery, you will be greeted by a magnificent view of the site’s interior. It is a wide-ranging structure that is full of terraces and columns surrounding the area. There are also letters displayed on a board which is from locals who claim their illnesses were healed by the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The church altar has some images of different saints surrounding the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary placed in the topmost middle part.
Oslob
Scuba Diving with Whale Sharks!
Our primary reason for coming to Oslob, was to scuba dive with the Whale Sharks. There are very few places in the world where one can observe these amazing creatures, let alone, be allowed to scuba dive with them. Snorkeling with them is more common, like I did from Holbox Island, Mexico, a few years before.
*(If interested, I posted my Photogallery links for this wonderful Mexico trip, at the end of this blog post)
The Whale Sharks are Amazing!
In Oslob, the water was a little murky, so visibility wasn’t as good, since we were closer to shore, vs out in the ocean. We walked into the water from shore, in our dive gear. The pictures didn’t come out very sharp, but we had a blast, and loved the opportunity and experience.
The Whale Shark is the world’s largest living fish, growing up to 45 feet 12 long. These large fish have five sets of gills and a set of dorsal fins that form a dual-lobbed caudal fin. Inside their roughly 4 and 1/2 feet wide mouths, they have over 300 rows of teeth. Though Whale Sharks have several hundred teeth, they don’t use them to eat. Instead, these fish are filter feeders, swimming forward to swallow prey. They are carnivorous, eating krill, crab and fish larvae, small schooling fish, and jellyfish.
Humans are not on the menu.
Whale Sharks live in all warm and tropical seas, are migratory, and swim to as low as 13,281 feet, below the surface.
Whale Sharks are docile creatures, often allowing humans to swim around them. Some younger Whale Sharks have been observed to play with divers, and are otherwise gentle.
Some Whale Shark Facts:
*Whale Sharks can live up to 100 years.
*Whale Sharks will often “cough” to clear particles from their filter pads.
*Whale Sharks are covered in a pattern of spots that is unique to each shark, much like human fingerprints.
*While they are meat-loving carnivores, whale sharks do not attack humans.
*Whale sharks eat krill, crab and fish larvae, small schooling fish and jellyfish.
*When the young are fully developed, the female gives birth to around 300 live young.
Believe it or not, these large fish were only juvenile-sized. They are the only ones who come closer to shore. The adults are further out in the ocean, and they are even bigger! I swam with a huge adults in Mexico.
From our Oslob stay, we hired a driver to get us to a far-away fishing village; from far South, to far North, to a place near Daanabatanya, where we would stay in a little cottage by the sea.
Daanabutanya and Our Talisay Beach Stay
The blue dot on the left, is where the cottage was at Talisay Beach. This is where we based ourselves for a few nights, to make our way to the island of Malapascua, for Scuba Diving, which is located on the map; blue dot, top right.
We had an Iguana who lived in the rafters of this cottage. We never saw it, but could hear it. We were familiar with the same experience, from our time in Borneo, Malaysia, at a cabin we stayed in, while doing Safari on the Kinabatangin River. The call they make is “Eer-Eer.” over and over. They tend to get vocal, when it’s bedtime. Daryl sleeps like the dead, but me, no so much.
In the case of the little cottage, the Iguana was right over our bed, too. They feed off of the multitude of ants that were around. We moved our bed to the other end of the room, and this was a good plan, because that Iguana pooped and missed our bed, by six inches. He was obviously not happy with our presence.
The feeling was mutual.
Our next goal was to get to the Island of Malapascua, so we could go scuba diving with the Thresher Sharks. What a thrill that was!!
The morning arrived and we arranged a car transfer from the owner of the cottage, to get to the boat dock and hoped a boat would show up. Ha! These thoughts come to mind, because some places we get dropped off, are very remote, and it would be a long walk back where we started, if we could even remember. The little wooden boat did show up.
We had left all our world belongings, sans a small backpack of essentials, back in the cottage. We would only spend one night on Malapascua Island, to dive, then return back to our cottage, on another boat.
Traveling as we do, there are never any guarantees transportation will actually work out. Commercial flights, going from major city to major city, usually work, but the interior-workings, for transportation, in any third-world country is a crap-shoot, at best, and luck plays a big part in it. We do off-the-beaten-path travel, so it takes time and lots of patience to see our adventures through. A plan on paper, looks good, but executing those plans, is always challenging. For trips like this one, I arranged a few stops to break up the distance, but traveling full-time gives us the time, to see, and do, interesting things along the way. No need to rush. I love this part the best. That way, if there is a hiccup, we have time to deal with it and don’t miss out on too much.
Island of Malapascua
We made it to the island and got checked into our room. We only had a little time on the island, and it’s mostly a place where people come to dive, so it’s not resort-like, and we knew this, prior. We too, only came to dive. We stayed at the Blue Water and even had Wifi.
We enjoyed a yummy seafood dinner and entertained ourselves, well. The music was nice and we decided to dance, not that it was a dancing place, but we don’t need it to be. We enjoy our own romantic bubble, whenever the mood strikes.
Dive Morning!
We were up early; before sunrise, on our dive morning. We would get underway on a boat to the dive site and enjoy the sunrise, as we made our way. It was spectacular!
Malapascua is a small island in the Philippines, situated in the Visayan Sea, close to Cebu Island. This tropical island is famous for being one of the most attractive dive destinations. Here it’s nearly always possible to dive with many kinds of marine creatures, including Pelagic Thresher Sharks!
The Monad Shoal dive site is one of Malapascua’s most known spots, for consistent Thresher shark sightings. It should be mentioned that Thresher sharks are more active in the early morning, and at that time, they come to a coastal seamount, which is a 20-30 minute boat ride from Malapascua, to be cleaned by two species of cleaner wrasses. This is a cleaning station, and here, Thresher sharks display a similar behavior to Manta rays, if you’ve ever seen those graceful creatures, visiting one of their own cleaning stations.
Thresher Sharks are also called Fox Sharks and are split up into three living species: Pelagic Thresher, Bigeye Thresher and Common Thresher. One of these species, the Pelagic Thresher shark (Alopias Pelagicus), is known to inhabit the waters of Malapascua Island. It’s the smallest of the three species: 10 foot long and about 153 lbs.
Furthermore, this shark is characterized by the highly elongated upper lobe of its caudal fin, which is used like a whip to strike prey (especially small fish). In addition, this shark is a strong swimmer and can even be seen jumping out of the water (breaching). It’s not aggressive (no one has ever reported an attack on humans), and once it encounters a diver, it can be shy, usually changing direction and swimming away. Unfortunately the Thresher sharks population is declining, due to illegal fishing and pollution.
We Came. We Saw. We Did.
We saw Thresher Sharks! We dove down to a ledge, with a wall drop. We stayed on the ledge, where the area is called the “cleaning station.” Thresher Sharks come to this area to get their bodies cleaned by a kind of sucker fish. The fish feed off of what’s attached to the Thresher, and the Threshers feels good, afterwards.
We had a memorable dive and afterwards got back to our room. We had just enough time to shower and pack-up. Then, we needed to find the boat that would get us back to Daanabatanya.
Well, for those who live and or work on the tiny island of Malapascua, a trip to Daanabataya is necessary, for provisions. We ended up on a very crowded, small, wooden boat. It was absolute mayhem when it showed up, as apparently, not many boats do. We had a ticket, but that didn’t seem to matter. The money was what counted. Ha! We waded into the sea with the masses and hoped for the best. We clamored aboard, or I should say Daryl climbed on, then he help me got on, and we found a place to sit, on the edge of the boat. It was a long, slow, bumpy ride back to the mainland. We made it and didn’t sink!
Our car ride was waiting for us when we got back to the dock, (owner of the cottage) which was a relief, we got in and got back to our cottage. Unfortunately, something went wrong with the power, while we were away, somehow, and the icebox was warm. We lost all our food we had made a special stop for in Cebu City; on the way, because we knew there would be no restaurants around. This would include the potatoes salad and chicken I prepared ahead of time, for our return from diving, because I knew we would be hungry and tired. To make it more crazy, there were millions of ants in our cottage, enjoying the food going bad! They were IN the icebox! Yuck.
We ate some canned tuna, and crackers, that hadn’t been opened, thankfully, then went to work, getting rid of the ants, so we could take a much needed nap!
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Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico 🇲🇽 
Swimming with Whale Sharks in Mexico, Holbox Island (pronounced Holbash)
No scuba diving with the Whale Sharks was allowed at this location. The locals call the Whale Shark “The Domino Fish,” for their unique pattern of spots on their bodies. It was quite a workout to try swimming and keeping up with them. We were in deep ocean waters, so the rules had us wearing life vests. It’s hard to swim and snorkel dive with them on.
Also photos from this remote fishing village on Holbox Island. Back in the day, when I lived in Texas, my friend, Lisa and I flew into Cancun, rode in a van for hours, and boarded a ferry for at least another hour, to reach Holbox. There are no gas vehicles on the island. There are no paved roads. It’s all sand. It was wonderful! We had a total blast!
https://picsbypen.smugmug.com/Places/North-AmericaLife/MexicoLife/Yucatan/Holbox-Island
The island of Holbox is nestled off the northern coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, in the state of Quintana Roo, and it’s part of the Yum Balam Nature Reserve. It sits where the Caribbean Sea meets the Gulf of Mexico, offering breathtaking views and a unique blend of marine ecosystems, including mangroves.
Geographically, Holbox is separated from the mainland by a shallow lagoon (Laguna Conil), that acts as a natural barrier, preserving the island’s secluded nature.
The island, approximately 26 miles long and 1 mile wide, features Holbox Town as its heart, known for its sandy streets and colorful murals.
To the east of the island is Cabo Catoche (the northernmost point of the Yucatán Peninsula), and Punta Mosquito, where flamingos can be spotted, especially in summer.
To the west of the island is Punta Cocos, one of the best places to see the sunset in Holbox, and where at night you can witness bioluminescence thanks to the glowing phytoplankton.
From Mainland Ferry Port, to Holbox Island
Archive Blog Posts of Our Country Visits
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About Us
Hello and Welcome to our Travel Blog Website, We enjoy writing about our experiences and taking photos of our adventuring along the way. Our names are: Daryl and Pen, but Daryl calls me “Bunny.” We met, quite randomly, whilst both… Read More