Thresher Sharks
Malapascua, Phillipines. February, 2020
This was our first trip out to this part of the world, which is a trip I have been dreaming about running since we started publishing Shark Diver Magazine, way back in 2003. Thresher sharks are a species I have wanted to see for a long time. It is such an iconic shark and one of those must see species if you are a hardcore shark finatic.

I am behind on my trip reports, but thankfully I kept a daily journal of my time out there. I missed a couple of days or journal writing, so I have three days of reportings, which I will share with you all here. Hope you enjoy…

February 4, 2020 - Day two out here with the thresher sharks. I missed writing about day one, super jet lagged and just crashed at the end of the day. Well, we did it! We arrived at a great time and have thresher sharks. I think we averaged between 4- 5 different sharks each day, so far. Conditions are challenging, and will continue to be a challenge this week…it is going to be lumpy. Sadly the weather is just something you can’t predict.

We had bad swells on both days, which have been pushing us around a bit. What is difficult is, it also murked up the vis, and with very little current, the particles in the water just sit there, ruining images. But thankfully, some sharks helped us out. We have been lucky with sharks moving up from the dark depths below, and onto the shallower cleaning stations, which are in about 40-50 feet of water, which has allowed us some opportunities to capture a few images we can all be proud of.

It is 10PM and I am so freaking sleepy right now. Today we woke up at 4:30am for a 5am dive. The threshers do like to begin early. 

We also went out for some reef dives to see some of the smaller stuff, I encountered my first cuddlefish, what an amazing animal that guy is, and the reefs here are just epic! Soft coral - and the colors are just beautiful. Again the vis was a challenge due to the weather, but when the animal is right in front of you, you don’t need much vis. My buddy Chris snapped some images of a pygmy seahorse. I got to see it, but I didn’t bring a macro lens, so I was content just getting to see this iconic miniature horse. Now those things are tiny.

February 5, 2020 - Went out for a two tank dive this morning for the threshers. We had sharks on both dives, but the encounters were not great. The water clarity on the first dive was poor so when we did see sharks it was in murky water, and if the sharks were more than five feet away, it was crap photos.

The second dive we had a couple of shark sightings, but they were down deep and not interested in coming up, which was bad luck for us, because the water was beautiful. We had some current which cleaned the water, so the chances of capturing some decent images was very high. But nope! No sharks for us in the shallows. We still have two more days of thresher dives so hopefully we will get something. Reports are saying that more bad weather is coming our way, so we might get weathered out for the next two days. Let’s hope not. We opted not to dive the third dive today, our group was not interested in doing it, due to the really murky conditions. Freaking weather. Come on weather gods, we need a break this week.

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February 6, 2020 - A SURPRISE MORNING. We went out in the early AM, for a one tank dive. We only brought one tank, because conditions were supposed to go to shit, with 22 knot winds predicted in the afternoon. But there was no wind, and it was flat calm seas. We do have over cast skies, which look threatening, but looking down over the side of the boat, I was pleased to see that we had blue water! We didn’t know it yet, but it turned into a perfect day. Ours was one of the only boats out at the shark site, which meant the threshers will not be as shy as when all the other dive shops are out there as well. It can sometimes get crowded. I guess everyone followed the weather report and thought the day was shot and cancelled their dives. We dropped down for our dive and had a few sharks down deep, but none wanted to come up into the shallows, where we had better light and pretty water at the cleaning stations. Bummer.

Finally, I was running low on air so I admitted defeat and swam up to do my safety stop. I had just finished it, when I spotted a shark below at a cleaning station in about 40 feet of water. I looked at my tank gauge, I had 600 lbs. left. I did some quick math in my head and felt I had enough air left to drop down to grab a couple of quick shots of the shark. I swam down and over the shark, and fired a couple of images off, when I realized the blunder of my ways…our group was there, I felt just horrible. I may have chased the shark away. I was that guy! Ugh.

I backed off right away and thankfully the shark diving gods were there to help me out… our beautiful shark stayed. I turned and called in Elaine who was behind me to my right, to get closer. the shark was swimming in big slow circles over the cleaning station. We were right there in the sand watching her. She swam by us, and then circled around us again. We all snapped image after image. I was on fire, this was the type of encounter I was hoping for.

Of course, I ended up staying longer than I had planned. But it was worth it, the thresher was still swimming around us. I looked at my air gauge, it kept dropping and after a few minutes of the best encounter of the trip, I was done and started back up to do another safety stop with what was left of my air. A huge smile on my face, as a sucked the last few drops of air from my tank. I had enough to finish up my safety stop and boarded the boat. Everyone who was down there was on fire!

What a day, what an incredible day.

When we got back on the boat, the weather was still beautiful, so we motored back to the dive shop to pick up another tank to go back out for a second dive, but NOPE, we got skunked. No sharks. Our first skunking of the trip. Not bad at all, after four days of diving, and we still have one day left!

Sadly I did not record our final day in the water, we did have sharks but nothing as special as our encounter from day 4.

Thanks for reading, truly hope you enjoy the images.

Additional Images from our expedition…