Magic on Monad Shoal

I’ve been staring into the blue so hard I thought I imagined its outline. But there it was, magically materialized and swimming head-on towards me. Just before reaching the edge of the submerged plateau where I hovered low, it made a big, slow turn—a large eye fixed on me for some seconds. I was transfixed by the silvery sheen on its side, and then by the scythe-like tail that gives thresher sharks their name.

Because Monad shoal (a soft-coral habitat) is a cleaning station where wrasses polish off parasites from sharks and rays’ gills, mouth, and skin, nowhere else are threshers encountered as regularly. Divers from all over have this protected area on their must-go-and-see list. In our outrigger dive boat alone, Italian, Norwegian, Danish, German, Belgian, and Russian divers shared my excited anticipation.

To be in the same waters as this rarely-found creature, we operated on thresher time. Our boat left the shore just before 6 a.m. and, by 6:30 a.m., I back-rolled into the water.

I turned and kicked to head down, pulling myself lower and lower on the anchor line to steady myself against the strong current. Finally, 24 meters below the water’s surface, I found my buoyancy as I came upon the sunken sandbank’s flattish top.

Its 1.5 kilometer expanse looked relatively stark, a seemingly bare stage waiting for its star to light it up. And wait is what we did, mimicking a nearby lion fish’s suspended stillness.

Staking my spot alongside other divers, I stayed low, breathed deeply and slowly. I looked around and at our dive master, hoping for the hand-on-the-head sign for shark.

Visibility was around 20 meters horizontally. I focused my sights beyond “shark’s point,” where the sides of the shoal dropped to about 300 meters. I sensed the collective prayer (and various bargaining with God) for a thresher shark to surface from the depths—where it normally herded and stunned prey of squid and schooling fish with its whip-like tail.

Which brings me back to the beginning of my story: a thresher shark did swim in from the blue. It seemed to consider us—this wide-eyed, bubbles-creating group—and then it swerved, giving us an appreciation of its sleek powerful tail which took up almost half of its six-meter muscular body. We waited anew (again, waiting is how this works) and, soon enough, it circled into view again.

That already made my day but Monad Shoal wasn’t through with me. By 2:30 p.m., I was back in the water and on the same ledge—prostrate as befitting an admirer of otherworldly beauty. This time, we were blessed with seven sightings of two manta rays with five to six meter wingspans.

Unlike that morning’s thresher shark which turned away as it neared us, one manta ray glided beyond where the shelf dropped. Its cephalic lobes unfurled to sweep plankton into its mouth as its broad rectangular mouth filtered and feeded through the water.

Flapping its large pectoral fins like a magnificent bird of the sea, it passed an arm’s length above me and, at one point, I found myself staring up at its white belly. I was electrified alive to my very bones. More so since I happen to be one of those local divers who travel the Philippines—from Ticao to Tubattaha—especially for this specimen of fluid grace. And Monad’s manta was the biggest (and the most up-close I’ve gotten) yet.

The dive’s last manta, gliding and looping, stayed with the group until, risking deco, we reluctantly headed back to the anchor line one by one. Even as I finned away, I twisted sideways to keep my manta in sight for as long as I could—burning its image in my memory, breathing out my thanks.

Getting There
Sea Explorers Cebu head office (tel. 032-2340248, email cebu@sea-explorers.com) arranged for my group’s three-day dives, van and boat transfers from Cebu international airport, and cottage stay. Our divemaster Martin Pascobello (mobile 0927-7172692) says June is the best time to schedule a dive trip.
For non-divers, Sea Explorers Malapascua (mobile 0927-6394587, tel. 032-4370411) recommends getting directly in touch with any of these resorts: Sunsplash (mobile 0927-2741756), Hippocampus (mobile 0927-8008940), or Cocobana (tel. 032-4371040).
From Manila, we took an early morning flight to Cebu. Upon arrival at the airport, we were picked up by a van for a three-hour land trip to Maya wharf. Finally, a half-hour boat trip brought us to Cebu’s northern tip, Malapascua Island.

Lu-Ann Fuentes

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~ by luannfuentes on February 8, 2007.