November 6, 2007 | 12:00am
Malapascua Island situated north of Cebu; has a population of nearly 3,000 with beautiful white sand beaches and is the only place in Asia if not the world where recreational divers can see the magnificent Thresher shark within diving limits.
The Thresher shark is naturally a deep-water pelagic shark, which visits the shallow cleaning stations found atop local sea mounds surrounding Malapascua Island. The shark is most famous for its exceptionally long scythe like tail that it uses to coral fish while hunting and is an awesome site that divers from all over the world relish to see.
Exotic Island Dive Resort is the pioneer dive resort on Malapascua Island. The owner along with several local guides, are all now PADI accredited. The resort is in Monad Shoal, where the first people actually dived with Thresher sharks back in 1997, thus putting Malapascua on the map off famous dive spots in the world.
Since 1997, Exotic Island Dive Resort has continued to contribute to Malapascua and Cebu’s image as world class dive destination. On the first Chinese Dive Expo held in Shanghai, Exotic Island Dive Resort was the only Cebu based participant. The forerunner in environmental awareness, Exotic Resort has been granted environmental achievement awards from government bodies, Project Aware and PADI and has helped to increase awareness regarding recycling and safe waste disposal methods within the local community. Exotic Island Dive Resort is also the latest PADI dive center to be awarded with Project AWARE Go ECO Operator status in 2007.
Project AWARE Foundation, the dive industry’s leading non-profit environmental organisation, launched the Go ECO campaign into the Asia Pacific region in 2005. The main objective of Go ECO is for dive centers to minimise their impact on the aquatic ecosystem while contributing to environmental, economic and cultural conservation. Dive centers are required to meet best practice environmental guidelines and commit to the Project AWARE Go ECO philosophy.
Over the years, Exotic has played host to many esteemed documentary makers from National Geographic to more recently Monty Hall’s Great Ocean Adventures, shown this year worldwide on Animal Planet. The films focus on the amazing Thresher sharks in their natural environment and serve to increase public awareness regarding these wonderful sharks and the need to protect them and the waters surrounding Malapascua.
Exotic Island Dive Resort is committed to raising public awareness of the magnificent Thresher shark and continues to invite worldwide documentary makes and photographers to help further promote the image of Malapascua Island.
For more information go to www.malapascua.net
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