Malapascua 2012, Day 5

April,

Today we got up at 4:30 a.m. again to do the thresher shark dive. It is by far the most popular dive site here, but then that is why a lot of people come to Malapascua is because it is one of the few places in the world where you can consistently see thresher sharks. At 5 a.m. it looks like rush hour traffic on the 101 with all the boats headed to Monad Shoal to drop off divers to see the sharks.

As soon as we got in the water Shelagh spotted some mantas swimming off but the visibility was pretty bad and I did not get to see them. We had a thresher swim by us right after we got in but none of us with cameras were prepared, so we did not get any shots. The sharks we saw later in the dive never really came in very close and the visibility was pretty poor.

After the shark dive we came back and had breakfast. I have to say the food here is really good. I had a ham and cheese omelet this morning with toast and butter and of course a fresh mango and a glass of mango juice. They bake all their own bread here. Not only is the food good but the presentation is awesome. This stuff looks like it is coming out of the kitchen of a five-star restaurant.

Last night for dinner they had breaded mozzarella stuffed chicken breast with balsamic glazed eggplant and roasted potatoes with dill. Every day they change the menu so the items for lunch and dinner are different. We liked the chicken we had last night so well we asked them if we could have it for lunch today too. The desserts are beyond awesome. I have had the banana fritters with ice cream and Toron surprise with ice cream. I have never had anything that good at home...

Good food and good diving, what more could we ask for.

Eric went out diving again at 5 p.m. They were headed to the lighthouse where supposedly there are some resident mandarin fish. I decided to sit this one out as the cold I came down with decided to move to my head this afternoon. There was such a nice ocean breeze blowing I decided to go out and swing in the hammock in front of our room and wait for Eric to return.

He got back about 7:45 and said he was definitely going back to that spot. They said there was a coral head with a pair of mandarin fish in it that were darting around and then as sundown came they rose up above the coral in their mating dance.

After Eric got back and cleaned up we went over to get some dinner. Eric ordered the blackened chicken with a caribbean salad salt and vinegar and I ordered the bacon and wild mushroom risotto.