Malapascua Island
When you travel, you would always want to have the best time at a good price. One of the things I’m totally addicted is going to the beach on my free time. Just up North in Cebu is an island filled with so much pleasure and white beaches. You might even find the best diving spots at Malapascua. Malapascua is found in Cebu. In order to get there, you need to ride a pump boat from Daan Bantayan. It has long stretches of white sands and great diving spot. You might even catch sharks lurking around the corner if you go diving.
Malapascua Island is situated in the Visayan Sea, located across a shallow strait from the northernmost tip of Cebu Island. Administratively, it is part of the insular barangay of Logon, Daanbantayan Municipality, Cebu Province, the Philippines. Malapascua is a tiny island, only about 2.5 kilometers long and 1 km wide, and has eight hamlets..
As a diving destination, Malapascua was “discovered” fairly recently, only in the early 90s. The island was first known for its wide white sand beach, known as Bounty Beach; it has also become known for its beautiful coral gardens and excellent dive spots nearby, including Monad Shoal, an underwater plateau where thresher sharks and manta rays can be sighted on a regular basis.
Most of the islanders derive their livelihood from tourism, while some still rely on subsistence fishing and farming.
The name Malapascua means ‘Bad Christmas’ in Cebuano. Legend has it that it was so named because the Spanish first landed here one stormy Christmas Day in the 1500’s. There is some debate about the name however because although ‘mal’ definitely means ‘bad’, ‘pasco’ means Christmas in the local language of Cebuano but “pascua” in Spanish means Easter. So perhaps it was a stormy Easter after all.
Today, Malapascua is a beautiful, sleepy island, as yet unspoiled by tourism with white sandy beaches, lush green palm trees and surrounded by clear blue waters.
10/29/2009 at 9:19 pm
[...] Malapascua Island [...]