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Malapascua, Cebu
Anyone who’s ever been to Malapascua
— and had the unforgettable
experience of diving with the thresher
sharks and manta rays at Monad Shoal
— owe Filipino-Dutch couple Cora and
Dik de Boer a debt of gratitude. Not
only do they own and operate one
of the first (and still the leading) dive
resorts on the island, but the couple is
also responsible for discovering and
developing the dive site that has made
Malapascua world-famous.
It was in 1996 when the de Boers,
who married in 1989, read about
Malapascua in a guidebook. So when
the adventurous couple was traveling
together through the country, they
made the trip to the small island off the
northwest tip of Cebu, and found that
everything that the guidebook gushed
about was indeed true. It was, says
Cora, “the tropical cliché of palm-
fringed white sand beaches and clear
turquoise waters.” The locals’ stories
of sharks and World War II-era wrecks
also enthralled the couple, so a year
later they returned with a portable
compressor.
Together in
adventure
The reefs around the island held
enough promise, but it was the local
fishermen’s tales of thresher sharks
— which they could not even name
— that really piqued their interest. Led
by fishermen to the site, Cora and Dik
went on a dive with their friend Mikael
Persson and came face to face with
thresher sharks circling the underwater
plateau of Monad Shoal. The threshers,
deep-water dwellers with small heads
and long, whiplike tails that can grow
as long as the sharks’ bodies, are very
rarely spotted, and it quickly became
clear to the de Boers that Monad was
truly special. It is now recognized as the
only place in the world where thresher
sharks can be spotted regularly in
recreational-diving depths.
Though the couple had always
thought of putting up their own resort,
they never expected that diving, once
only their hobby, was going to be a
business. The de Boers built Malapascua
Exotic Island in 1997, and since then it
has played host to countless journalists,
Sand and sea where thresher
sharks abound make
Malapascua a favorite
among divers. Below: Cora
and Dik de Boer.
09LKH Smile
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