What an experience! We finally visited Malapascua Island in the Philippines for thresher sharks. This is one of the only places in the world for thresher shark sightings. The Red Sea is another, but I don’t know how reliable it is anymore? So if you want to see this unique species of sharks, Malapascua is where you need to go.

We organized this trip and I was skeptical about our chances for good photography, because everything I have ever heard about this place, is the diving happens in the early morning, like 5AM early. And you are not allowed to use strobes, due to the very sensitive eyes that threshers sharks have (which is awesome that they protect them that way). So I was not sure what to expect. I chalked it down as it would be just an amazing experience. Thresher sharks were high on my need to see it list for many, many years.

Well this place is amazing and the photo opportunities are fantastic, IF, you learn how to shoot using natural light. Thankfully, I pretty much exclusively use natural light for my underwater photography, so it was pretty easy for me to do a custom white balance and capture the images in low light.

A quick protip, for anyone wanting to photograph threshers here is; practice and learn how to use your custom white balance feature on your camera and housing. You will be very happy if you do. And also the thing about custom white balance is, it is a continuous thing. When you are at 40 feet and set your white balance, you will need to set it again when you reach 50 feet, and then 60, etc. You have to continuously change it to capture the right colors for the depth you are at.

So back to my blog. I was going to post my entire field journal, but decided to just pull a page from one day out there, this was my favorite day of the trip with our group. Hope you enjoy!

February 6, 2020 - We went out this morning for a one tank dive. We only brought one tank, because conditions were supposed to go to hell, with 22 knot winds predicted. But when we woke up and went to the dive shop, there was zero wind and flat calm seas?

As we motored out, there was a bit of an over cast sky, but it looked like it was going to burn out. The thing that pulled our attention was the color of the water, this was the first day we have had this week, where the water was visibly blue. It turned into a perfect morning and the best weather day of the trip. Of course in the back of our minds, we were waiting for the winds to pick up, but thankfully, nothing.

We dropped down for our dive and began our search for the threshers. The action was pretty slow. We had a few threshers down in the dark waters, at about 80 plus feet. But it was too dark to snap any photos there, and the water, due to a chilly thermal cline, was very murky. So we stayed up high. My buddy Chris, had a thresher swim up and over him at about 60 feet, and I snapped a few shots of that, but I was pretty far away, so not exciting images. We continued our search, but despite the bluest water we had, the sharks were just not very active up high.

I had stayed down as long as I could and finally decided to go up when my tank read about 700 lbs. While waiting there during my safety stop, magic happened, a thresher shark rose up out of the depths and started swimming around the cleaning station. My eyes dropped down to the tank gauge and it read 600 Lbs. Plenty of air! I dropped back down and swam over the top of the shark, to get a shot of it, before it disappeared back down into the depth. Snapping a couple of quick shots of the shark, realizing the error of my ways, our group was there, and I totally just dropped down on top of the shark, and may of screwed it up for them. I was gutted and felt just horrible.

Thankfully the ocean gods were kind, and the shark stayed, still circling the cleaning station. I turned and called in Elaine who was to my right, to get closer. She moved in and the shark swam by, circling again. I snapped images when I could, and in between shots, I checked my gauge. The shark kept circling and I moved back to snap some images of Elaine taking pictures. I stayed as long as I could, but my air kept dropping, so after a few minutes of the best encounter of the trip, my tank said no more. So I went back up to do another safety stop. A huge smile on my face, sucking the last few drops of air from my tank. There was enough air to finish up the safety stop, and the last of the air finished as I boarded the boat. Everyone who was down there was on fire. It is crazy how one moment can change the entire mood/experience of a dive. If that shark had not shown up, it would of been an ok dive, but because that shark arrived, for just a few minutes, it turned in epic, memorable dive. That is what I love about nature and wild places, you never know what to expect.

The weather stayed good, so we went back out for a second dive, but sadly got skunked. No sharks. Our first skunker dive of the trip. Not bad after four days of diving.