Monad Shoal is an underwater island on the edge of a 200m drop off. The thresher sharks used to live here, but a few years ago, several tiger sharks moved in and took over!

The shoal also attracts other pelagics such as large rays and other species of shark. Monad Shoal is perfect for Nitrox.

Please note that this is a more advanced dive site and if you are Open Water please contact us for your options.

Kimud Shoal is a sunken island. The top of the island lies at 12-16m, and the steep sides drop off to 200m+. Its main attraction are the magnificent thresher sharks that can be seen there daily.

Learn more about these beautiful animals with our distinctive PADI Thresher Shark Specialty.

The top of the island has a lot of hard coral, and many excellent hiding spots for moray eels, nudibranchs and octopuses. The sides are covered in soft coral growth and the east side is especially interesting for its rock formations and overhangs.

Please note that this is a more advanced dive site. If you are an Open Water diver, you can still participate, but you must have an instructor accompany you.

Gato Island is one of our most loved dive sites. TSD’s famous saying is that “You come to Malapascua for the thresher sharks, but leave with Gato in your heart”.

Gato is a marine reserve and sea snake sanctuary. It has at least five dive sites with a huge diversity of marine life. We are constantly seeing new creatures.

At all sites you can see such things as banded sea snakes, cuttlefish (often while mating,) seahorses, nudibranchs, frogfish, scorpion fish, porcupine fish, and smashing mantis shrimp. Away from the reef you can see schools of squid and big-mouthed mackerel attracted by the bait-balls. There are many white-tip sharks in residence at Gato, as well as bamboo and cat sharks.

The coral is in good condition and the rocky island has many underwater rock formations, overhangs and swim-throughs.

Or more accurately, “The Tunnel.” Journey underneath Gato Island and come out the other side! This 30m tunnel houses all the usual cave dwellers: many types of crabs, big and small, lobsters and cardinal fish. You should also encounter some large puffer fish and perhaps bamboo and cat sharks.

Most exciting of all, the cave is home to white-tip sharks! You may see them hiding in a corner as you pass by inches from their face, or see their silhouette as they circle near the exit in the midst of a huge school of smaller fish. If you are careful and move slowly, they will swim straight by your face. The sight is simply breathtaking. Not for the faint of heart. For experienced divers only.

You are 95% guaranteed to find whitetip sharks sleeping under rocks, and if you are lucky you will see them circling.

They grow to huge sizes – sometimes over 2 meters. Other life here includes banded boxer shrimp, nudibranchs, seahorses, scorpion fish, spider crabs, frogfish, lionfish and whip coral shrimp, perfectly colour matched to the huge whip corals found inside the ‘Seahorse Cave’.

Drop down to 24m to find the extremely rare pygmy seahorse, both pink and yellow as well as spider crabs and cowries.

Then work your way back along a wall where you can find lionfish and many nudibranchs, including the beautiful Spanish dancers, up to 30cm long. Painted frogfish are often in residence.

As the name implies, we find nudibranchs galore at this site.

Also around are lots of hermit crabs and scorpion fish.

Explore some of the more amazing rock formations around Gato, including the stunning Cathedral rock.

This is a great place to see sharks – we have seen as many as 15 white-tips circling. It is also possible to see blue-spotted rays.

Enjoy a dusk dive to see the beautiful, psychedelic mandarinfish mating. Kneel in patches of sand in front of staghorn corals and watch as mandarinfish pair up and do their spectacular dance. As day turns into night, and the mandarin fish return to their hiding places, the creatures of the night come out. You should catch some interesting nudibranchs and a variety of cephalopods – reef squid, bobtail squid, starry night octopus, blue-ringed octopus and cuttlefish, seahorses and pipefish, juvenile sweetlips, banded sea snakes, huge crabs and sea stars, many varieties of shrimp and the occasional frogfish.

Lapus Lapus Island has some of the most spectacular coral growth we have ever seen. There is a huge variety of soft and hard coral, much of it in pristine condition.

Other marine life includes giant frogfish, painted frogfish, smashing mantis shrimp, sweetlips, cuttlefish and lionfish. There are many nudibranchs, commensal shrimp and porcelain crabs.

A great macro site and at the end of the dive you come to 8 meters onto a seemingly endless beautiful soft coral garden.

Beautiful soft coral and varied marine life including frogfish of different colors, nudibranchs and fire urchin with ‘hitchhikers’ like zebra crabs and candy crabs.

A great area for macro – an amazing rocky hang-over could easily keep you busy for the whole dive.

This is a short wall at 24m, about 10m long by 6m high.

Its nooks and crannies hide a wide variety of life including giant frogfish and nudibranchs.

After investigating the wall, swim out from the wall into a sandy area which is home to a field of sea pens and many other critters, then let yourself get taken by the current on an amazing drift dive.

A beautiful site with better than average visibility and fish life, soft corals, spearing mantis shrimp, pygmy sea horses and a lot of macro.

Bugtong Bato is an underwater pinnacle, very near Malapascua.

There is a large school of batfish is residence as well as squid, mackerel, nudibranchs, scorpionfish, lion fish, zebra crabs and whip coral shrimp.

Deep rock is 5 minutes from Malapascua.

It starts at 5 meters and slopes down to 22m. It has frogfish, nudibranchs, pygmy seahorse, robust ghost pipefish, juvenile batfish, harlequin sweetlips, spotted leather coral cowries and and bigger black cowries.

Dakit Dakit is very close to the dive shop and has beautiful soft coral, nudibranchs, banded pipefish, seahorses and cuttlefish.

This is a great muck dive – some divers have told us that Bantigue is even better than Lembeh!

It starts as a shallow reef that turns into a sandy bottom at around 12m where you can find all kinds of unusual creatures. There are gobies and shrimps living together everywhere and the tiny rocks often house small mantis shrimps. You will often see fire urchins, zebra crabs, dwarf lionfish, cuttlefish, seamoths, banded sea kraits, frogfish, nudibranchs and snowflake moray eels. Occasionally we can also see mimic octopuses and stargazers.

Adjacent to Bantigue, Ka Osting offers some similar diving to Bantigue with the added attraction of hairy frogfish!

Macro life is abundant here with plenty of  shrimps, crabs, nudibranchs, cuttlefish, clownfish and even ghost pipefish. Check out the anemones and the area around them for patches of eggs, porcelain crabs and banded boxer shrimps.

A picturesque and pristine Coral Island that derives its name from a notable American Navy Captain Cillo, who during the second world war, beached his vessel on the Islet. This is a stunning wall dive of soft corals, sea fans and a plethora of colourful macro-life.

Chocolate Island is a beautiful shallow dive site and a photographer’s delight. The healthy soft coral is home to a large variety of life: sea snakes, snake eels, moray eels, cuttlefish (including flamboyants), Pegasus seamoths, large crabs and juvenile batfish.

The macro here includes a vast array of nudibranchs, shrimps and cowries. Flatworms are common and if you are lucky you will see them performing their jaw droppingly beautiful shimmery mating ritual!

Kalanggaman Island is the picture postcard desert island, actually chosen from over 7,000 islands to grace the cover of Jens Peters – the definitive Philippines Travel Guide. Visibility is usually good and fish life is plentiful. Drop down the walls which are covered in hard corals and gorgonian fans and inhabited by many varieties of fish. Look for pelagics out in the blue including sharks, rays, tuna and barracuda. You can also see many critters including fields of garden eels, beautiful white mushroom coral pipefish, ornate ghost pipefish and candy crabs as well as the very special Denise Pygmy seahorse.

Dolphins are often seen on the way there or back.

Often we will stop on the island for a beach barbecue during our surface interval and overnight stays can also be arranged.

A stunning wall dive, Nunez Shoal hosts a wide variety of life. As you approach the wall and drop off, look ahead into the sandy areas for groups of garden eels.

As you drop over the wall, look out into the blue for pelagics such as eagle rays and sharks, and along the wall you can spot white eyed and snowflake moray eels, lionfish, scorpion fish, and rare nudibranchs galore among the giant sea fans and sponges.

Visibility can be around 30m and there are big schools of small fish. Nunez shoal is on the edge of a drop off to almost 1km, so expect the unexpected!

This is a very special trip to an isolated area that is rarely dived.

Expect stunning reefs with a lot of fish life. Including blacktip reef sharks, beaked coralfish, Bartlett’s dragonets, Denise pygmy seahorse, barracuda, tiger mantis shrimp, nudibranchs galore and much more!

We usually run this as a 3 dive day trip, including breakfast and lunch, with a possible stop at dive sites on the way.

We have been building and artificial House Reef since 2008 and it is starting to attract plenty of life. It has several old boats, a basketball hoop, Stonehenge, a toilet and several other structures that have been constructed especially for the reef.

A side of Malapascua Island that is sometimes sheltered when the rest is not, this is a pretty dive site.

The hard coral is in great condition and there is a good variety of marine life: dwarf lionfish, nudibranchs and squid.

Search through the sea grass and the sandy patches on the east side of the island to find an amazing variety of life.

There is plenty to see here including moray eels, lionfish, crabs and many other bottom dwellers.

Off the north of Malapascua, Twins is an easy, shallow dive site covered in soft leather corals.

There are some interesting rock formations and good macro life.

Maria’s Point has great diving, in part because of the strong currents here. You can expect clear waters, good corals and an excellent variety of life.

For advanced divers only.

Buhoc Point is a site off North Leyte rarely visited by divers.

The pristine corals slope down to a sandy bottom where you are sure to spot some blue spotted rays if you move slowly! A variety of other marine life can be seen here.

Another rarely visited dives site, Maripipi has everything you could want in a dive site: excellent corals and plentiful fish life including sharks and rays.

We dive here on a minimum 2 day dive safari.

Shore diving is limited but possible. It is very shallow off the main beach, and you will have to swim out for 200m to get even 3m. However, there are some good tings to see. The first 100m is mostly sea grass, but it hides beautiful starfish, puffers, pipefish, nudibranchs, small octopus, and is the schooling ground for many juveniles.The sea grass turns into hard coral, home to schools of cardinalfish, damselfish and sergeant majors. Look carefully and you can find lionfish, moray eels and incredibly well camouflaged and very weird looking sea hares. Occasionally seen are blue-ringed octopus and eagle rays. You must do this dive with a float or SMB above you at all times as it is so shallow.

The wreck at Lighthouse was a Japanese World War II landing craft. It was bombed just before landing with a large shipment of cement destined for a gun emplacement. The wreck is in very shallow water – 3m average – and is broken up with the hull in two pieces. The nearby rocks that you will see are actually bags of cement and you can still see the weave imprints on some of them!

Marine life around the wreck include yellow-tailed barracuda, hermit crabs, octopus, pipefish, juvenile harlequin sweetlips, and banded sea snakes. This is a great boat for wreck diving newbies and you may even dive on it during PADI Open Water course dives. It is also perfect for practicing reel use and running a line in preparation for wreck penetration into the Dona Marilyn Wreck (shown here) on the PADI Wreck Diver Specialty Course.

Nearby is Lighthouse (see above) – easily reached from the wreck to see abundant mandarinfish and seahorses.

The Dona Marilyn was a Cebu-Manila passenger ferry that sank in a typhoon over 30 years ago. It was a huge disaster and many people lost their lives. The wreck is around 100m long, and now lying on its starboard side, amazingly still all in one piece. Long lost fishing nets encrusted in coral are draped all over it, giving it quite a spooky feel!

Marble rays, blue-spotted rays and whitetip sharks live under the bow and eagle rays and devil rays sometimes pass through. The wreck is covered in a healthy growth of soft coral, and the resident fish grow to a large size. Several varieties of sweetlips grow bigger here than at any of our other dive sites and the juveniles are often seen. Large cuttlefish and scorpionfish are common as well as nudibranchs and flatworms. A giant moray eel is living in the wreck. You can also see many of the beautiful purple fire sea urchins, accompanied by their resident zebra crabs and Coleman’s shrimp. Penetration is possible for qualified divers. There is lots to see inside as it has remained unsalvaged

We dive here on a minimum 2 day dive safari.

The ‘Taplion’ Wreck, is an unidentified World War II Japanese cargo carrier, named for the nearby town on the mainland. The boat was hit by torpedoes and although it lies in several sections, it is still recognizable as a vessel. There is an abundance of life on this wreck and it is covered in beautiful black coral, some bushes containing hundreds of almost invisible shrimp jumping around.

There are also many species of flat worms and nudibranchs, as well as moray eels, cuttlefish, squid, and scorpion fish. Huge marble rays are sometimes seen; also the fire sea urchin and its accompanying zebra crabs, squat lobsters and Coleman’s shrimp. Sometimes we have several ornate ghost pipefish and frogfish in residence and if you are lucky you will see a flamboyant cuttlefish.

An attempt to salvage the wreck uncovered bullets and bones so this is not a dive for the faint-hearted!

The “Pioneer” Wreck is still unidentified but thought to be either the Japanese WWII Oakita Maru or Mogami Maru.

It is about 60m long, in the upright position and still mostly in one piece. There is a torpedo hit on the stern but the prop is still remaining.

The wreck has more fish than anywhere else on Malapascua due to its depth, as well as sharks, rays, barracuda and groupers. Only diveable when the tides are right, so you should arrange this in well in advance. Find out more about technical diving at TSD Tec.