Diving in Malapascua

Nestled at the northernmost tip of Cebu in the Visayas region of the Philippines, Malapascua Island is rapidly gaining fame as one of the world's premier dive destinations. Its claim to fame? The mesmerizing thresher sharks that grace the clear waters, offering divers a unique, thrilling experience. But the allure of Malapascua extends beyond its sharks. The island is a gateway to an underwater paradise, where divers can explore vibrant coral reefs teeming with marine life. Located within the Coral Triangle, these reefs are home to a colorful array of species, including the elusive mandarin fish, making every dive a visual feast. Diving around Malapascua offers a variety of experiences, catering to different styles and preferences. Monad Shoal, a submerged island, is particularly famous for early morning thresher shark encounters. Meanwhile, Gato Island provides a different thrill with its tunnel swim-throughs and sightings of white-tip reef sharks. Dive sites like Kemod Shoal add to the diversity, presenting breathtaking underwater landscapes that range from coral formations to sloping reefs and small walls. With its warm waters, rich biodiversity, and unique dive sites, Malapascua is a must-visit for diving enthusiasts seeking adventure and wonder in the heart of the Philippines.

Upcoming Events

Diver Level Programs / Courses

Atlas Divers Philippines, Inc.

Advanced Open Water Diver

17 Nov 2025

If you cannot decide which specialty programs are the best choice for you, join the SSI Advanced Open Water Diver program! You will try Deep Diving and Navigation plus a variety of 3 more specialty areas of choice before committing to full specialty training. It is a great way to experience what advanced diver training is all about and how valuable it can be to your diving adventures. During the Advanced Open Water Diver Program, you will experience 5 different specialties by completing one open water training dive per specialty after a comprehensive briefing with your SSI Instructor. By taking this program you will have total freedom to explore. You can complete the full Specialty trainings any time in the future and credit your Advanced Open Water Diver training towards them.

Professional Level Programs / Courses

Divergems Diving Center

Assistant Instructor

23 Nov 2025 + 1 more

The Assistant Instructor rating is the next step after becoming a Divemaster along the scuba instructor pathway. It allows you to collect valuable teaching experience, practice briefings, teach academics, and conduct in-water training. If you want to further your career as a dive professional, you can finish the Instructor Training Course, pass the Instructor Evaluation, and become an Open Water Diving Instructor.

Professional Level Programs / Courses

Divergems Diving Center

Open Water Instructor (Instructor Training Course ITC)

28 Nov 2025 + 1 more

Beginne noch heute - Du musst Divemaster oder gleichwertig sein, um an dem 3-stufigen Instructor Training von SSI teilzunehmen. Die Ausbildung beginnt mit der Teilnahme am Assistant Instructor / Instructor Training Course in Kombination mit Digital Learning. Nach erfolgreichem Abschluss des Instructor Training Course (ITC) nimmst du an einer Instructor Evaluation (IE) teil, um dich als SSI Open Water Instructor zu qualifizieren. Dieses 10-tägige Trainingsprogramm berechtigt dich dazu, verschiedene SSI Schlüsselprogramme wie Scuba Diver, Open Water Diver, Enriched Air Nitrox, Diver Stress & Rescue und Dive Guide selbstständig zu unterrichten. Für diejenigen, die sich mehr Zeit zum Lernen nehmen und zwischen den Trainingsprogrammen wertvolle Lehrerfahrung sammeln wollen, können die 3 Teile auch in Einzelschritten absolvieren - Assistant Instructor, Instructor Training Course (ITC) und Instructor Evaluation (IE) nacheinander im eigenen Tempo und mit einem flexiblen Zeitplan. Das Lernen mit unserem lokalen IT Jameson Rey alias divergems ist nicht nur sehr lehrreich, sondern macht auch Spaß und sorgt dafür, dass die Sicherheit und der Komfort jedes einzelnen Teilnehmers an erster Stelle stehen.

Diver Level Programs / Courses

Little Mermaid Dive Resort

Open Water Diver

22 Dec 2025

This globally recognized certification program is the best way to begin your lifelong adventures as a certified scuba diver. Personalized training is combined with in-water practice sessions to ensure you have the skills and experience required to become truly comfortable underwater. You will earn the SSI Open Water Diver certification.

Diver Level Programs / Courses

Little Mermaid Dive Resort

Open Water Diver

22 Dec 2025

This globally recognized certification program is the best way to begin your lifelong adventures as a certified scuba diver. Personalized training is combined with in-water practice sessions to ensure you have the skills and experience required to become truly comfortable underwater. You will earn the SSI Open Water Diver certification.

Top Dive Sites Map

★★★★★ Pasil Reef

Pasil Reef is a nice sandy area suitable for muck diving. Also it is great site for night diving. Max depth is around 16M. The average depth is 5-8M.

241
Logs
162
Divers
14.0 m
⌀ Depth
14.0 m
⌀ Visibility

★★★★☆ Bool Reef

Nice coral and sea grass reef and a good spot for night diving. This site is for beginners and a good training location for open water students and advanced.

36
Logs
32
Divers
19.0 m
⌀ Depth
14.0 m
⌀ Visibility

★★★★☆ Secret Wall

This is an advanced dive site that goes down to 28M. This wall dive has an average depth of 12M to 14M. This is a good dive muck divers and macro photography.

165
Logs
145
Divers
23.0 m
⌀ Depth
11.0 m
⌀ Visibility

★★★★☆ Mangrove

Mangrove is a great dive site for open water training with an average depth of 8-10m and a maximum depth of 14m. There is a nice sandy area and a patch reef.

536
Logs
401
Divers
17.0 m
⌀ Depth
17.0 m
⌀ Visibility

★★★★☆ Lapus-Lapus

The shallow part of the famous Lapus-lapus islet off the coast, of the tip of the north of malapascua island. It has the shallowest depth at 4-5m crawling down to the deeper side to 18-20m it is perfect for beginner and advanced divers looking to observe the marine life interaction in the reef.

2,028
Logs
1,627
Divers
18.0 m
⌀ Depth
12.0 m
⌀ Visibility
Mares

★★★★☆ Dakit Dakit Pinnacle

Dakit Dakit Pinnacle is about 5M deep at the top and then stands up to 12-14M and has the diameter of the top is 20M. Covered with nice hard and soft corals including table corals and big rocks with nice growth.

329
Logs
281
Divers
17.0 m
⌀ Depth
13.0 m
⌀ Visibility
Mares

★★★★☆ Dakit Dakit

Small rocks are coming out of the water and make a stunning atmosphere especially during sunset. Strong currents can be found at this dive site, but during other times of the day it is a perfect dive site for check-up dives, open water and advanced divers.

2,098
Logs
1,559
Divers
16.0 m
⌀ Depth
13.0 m
⌀ Visibility
Mares

★★★★☆ Blue Coral Malapascua

Beginner dive site, ideal for training courses, located close to the marine sanctuary. Sandy bottom with seagrass beds adjacent. Usually calm and still waters, light current only if present.

1,308
Logs
742
Divers
17.0 m
⌀ Depth
13.0 m
⌀ Visibility
Mares

★★★★★ Malapascua

A beautiful house reef dive full of fish.

1,242
Logs
500
Divers
19.0 m
⌀ Depth
14.0 m
⌀ Visibility
Mares

★★★★☆ Exotic Dive Resort house reef

Exotic’s protected area where the fish are plentiful, this Reef is not to be missed. Starting at 5 meters and gently sloping to 13, it’s a great place to work out the kinks after some time out of the water. Amongst the scattered coral and patches of sea grass, a wide variety of fish and macro life can be found.

1,077
Logs
670
Divers
15.0 m
⌀ Depth
14.0 m
⌀ Visibility
Mares, Janez Kranjc

★★★★☆ Bakhaw

10-15 minutes off from the port of Malapascua to the back of the island in the north east side, with its flat sandy, grassy bottom it is perfect for the open water divers practicing their buoyancy and expert divers looking for extremely small macro critters.

44
Logs
37
Divers
15.0 m
⌀ Depth
15.0 m
⌀ Visibility
Aqualung

★★★★☆ Lighthouse Reef

A favorite night dive site in Malapascua found on the northern part of the island. The dive usually starts at dusk to enable divers to watch the Mandarin fish.

2,940
Logs
2,402
Divers
11.0 m
⌀ Depth
10.0 m
⌀ Visibility
Mares, Janez Kranjc

★★★★☆ Japanese Shipwreck

Ideal Open Water Training Dive number one site, whereby your very first dive is also a wreck dive! Five to 12 meters depth range on a sandy bottom.

66
Logs
55
Divers
12.0 m
⌀ Depth
14.0 m
⌀ Visibility
Mares, Janez Kranjc

★★★★☆ Bantigue

A lovely sandy bottom patches and soft coral reefs with a healthy reef fishes colonies with a depth from shore outwards to 10-13 meters perfect for the open water sessions and Try Scuba / Try Mermaiding / Try Freediving sessions with minimal boat traffic to interfere the practice sessions.

609
Logs
467
Divers
11.0 m
⌀ Depth
12.0 m
⌀ Visibility
Mares

★★★★☆ Lapus I

Lapus Shallow Dive site is an ideal dive training site. It is a sandy slope with some rock formations. Most of the time there is a light current except for slack hight tide.

1,099
Logs
850
Divers
20.0 m
⌀ Depth
12.0 m
⌀ Visibility

Diving in Malapascua

Malapascua diving offers a lot of variety. Wall dives with caves, reef and muck diving will keep everyone happy. Some can be dived as drifts and there are a couple of wreck dives to explore too.

There are lots of dive centres on the island to choose from, all of which offer dive courses. The island is a very popular place to learn to dive and an open water course will take you around three days, though to dive with the threshers at Monad Shoal, you will need to complete a deep adventure dive or advanced course. There are several luxury dive resorts too which offer dive and stay packages at the more expensive end of the market. There are several liveaboards which operate in the area, most of which encompass the Visayas region at large.

The best Months to dive in Malapascua

Diving in Malapascua is good all year round, though there are different seasons to contend with. The driest time of the year is from February to May and this is also the best season for diving too. This is the season with the most tourists too so bear in mind that the island will be busier and some prices may be higher. This is the best season to see hammerhead sharks too.

Between June and November is generally known as a wet season, with more rainfall. There are occasionally typhoons in September and October but storms are usually short lived. The visibility is between 15m and 30m all year round except November-January. Plankton blooms reduce the visibility in the cooler water but this does increase the chance of seeing manta rays!

Statistics

Historical data and trends

Dive Activity & Environmental Conditions

Centers Map

Kokay’s Maldito Dive Resort

Malapascua Island, Barrio North, 6013 Daanbantayan, Cebu - PHL

MTD Dive Shop

Malapascua Island, Logon, 6013 Daanbantayan, Cebu - PHL

Little Mermaid Dive Resort

Malapascua Island, 6013 Cebu, Cebu - PHL

MONTENOVA DIVE RESORT

Logon, 6013 Daanbantayan, Cebu - PHL

Malapascua Kairos Diver

Sitio Barrio, 6013 Daanbantayan, Cebu, Cebu - PHL

Divergems Diving Center

Malapascua Island, 6013 Daanbantayan, Cebu - PHL

ZHANG RESORT AND DIVE CENTER OPC

Malapascua Island, Barangay Logon, 6013 Daanbantayan, Cebu - PHL

DIVE NATION

Malapascua Island, Brgy Logon, 6013 Daan Bantayan, Cebu - PHL

French Kiss Divers Malapascua

Malapascua Island, Legend, Bounty Beach,, 6013 Daanbantayan, Cebu - PHL

Atlas Divers Philippines, Inc.

Malapascua Island, Barrio Proper, 6013 Daanbantayan, Cebu - PHL