Diving trip with liveaboard in the Philippines

Diving trip with liveaboard in the Philippines

We were 16 tagged divers from Sweden, Norway, Denmark and England, who stood impatiently waiting at the luggage belt for the airport on the Philippine island of Cebu. For 7 days, the 40 meter long luxury liveaboard would S/Y Philippine Siren take us around the island on a diving trip here in the Philippines. The dive sites Kalanggaman, Malapascua, Gato Island, Oslob and Apo Island were to be visited. With a refreshing welcome drink in hand and a buffet dinner waiting, we eased anchor and began our journey.

We start diving

The first night we dropped anchor off the paradise island of Kalanggaman. We did two nice dives with good visibility and beautiful corals. After that, we continued to Cebu's northern tip, Malapascaua, where one of the highlights of the trip awaited. The next morning, before the sun rose, we were woken up and while rubbing the sleep out of our eyes, we ate breakfast and got ready. Today we were going to dive with the shy and mysterious thresher shark. The rib boats were ready at the rail to take us out to Monad Shoal.

When we arrived at the popular dive site (one of the world's best for thresher shark encounters), dive boats were already at the site. Prepared as we were, we could only roll in from the boats and slowly descend towards the putsar station at a depth of 32 meters. It was dark down there, but after a while we saw the thresher shark's characteristic long tail fin looming in the darkness. It came gliding majestically over the polishing station, then discreetly disappeared into the darkness. After brushing it a few times, 3 sharks appeared from different directions and slid in for brushing. Down in the depths, time passed incredibly quickly and suddenly it was time to begin our ascent. Back in the rib boats, the joy was great. What a dream start we got!

The journey continues south, time for the whale shark

The trip continued south, along the west coast of Cebu, with the first stop at Gato Island. We dived in smaller caves, on nice reef formations with a large selection of beautiful soft corals and macro. After a delicious dinner, we went through the following morning's early whale shark dive at Oslob. We were the first to arrive and were inside the marked area when, from the bangka boats, they started feeding the whale sharks with small fish. It was cool to see when the big bastards came up from the depths and into shallow water. For 15 minutes it was just us and the whale sharks. Then snorkelers in orange life jackets appeared everywhere. The best place to study when the whale shark was sucking and filtering food was at the surface.

It was fascinating to see how incredibly large amounts of water it absorbed. Time passed quickly here too and soon our 60 minutes were used up. Back on the boat, spirits were high and everyone wanted to tell about their special encounters with the gentle giants. It was now approaching the end of our glorious journey. Our last stop would be at Lord Island with its healthy reefs, pristine corals and crystal clear waters with endless visibility. The diver's absolute dream conditions.

Journey home

With the luggage home we had beautiful and exciting experiences from our liveaboard trip around Cebu. A big thank you to the crew of S/Y Philippine Siren, who always maintain a high standard and safety on board the boat and during the dive. Our diving trip with Liveaboard in the Philippines was wonderful. If you want to do the same turn can You make a request here.

Text and photos with © approval from Scuba Travel ambassador Tomas Jansson