Evolution Diving Resort

A small and friendly resort, Evolution features a quiet and spacious atmosphere with an emphasis on underwater excursions.

How To Get There

Located on Malapascua Island; the resort is approximately a 3-hour drive and 30-minute boat ride away from the airport in Cebu City. Evolution can provide transfers.

Dive Overview

The Philippines are home to a dense population of marine life, boasting colorful reefs and incredible macro life. Malapascua, in particular, boasts encounters with thresher sharks and schooling hammerheads, making this area of the Philippines very special.

[Read More: Malapascua Dive Travel Guide]

Accommodation Overview

Evolution Diving Resort has developed some of the best value rooms on Malapascua island. All rooms have complimentary drinking water and personal terraces, just meters from the beach, restaurant and dive shop.

Food & Drinks

• The Craic House is the best bar on Malapascua. Its an Irish pub on a Filipino beach, or a Filipino pub with warm Irish hospitality and a Celtic commitment to fun and frivolity. You choose.
• At the Craic House, you will find a smaller pub-inspired menu and an ever-changing specials board with a local ingredient flair. Using only the freshest local produce and the best imported ingredients available, you will find the menu to be familiar yet miles away.
• There is also a small wine selection available. The wines have been paired to the menu by a French Sommelier who has extensively sampled the dishes just ask your server for details. The wines are imported directly from France and Italy.

Dive Information

Malapascua Dive Sites

Here are some the dive sites in Malapascua:

• Dive Monad Shoal - We do daily trips to see the Thresher Sharks on Monad Shoal its a dawn dive and it is the most popular excursion for visitors here. We also do day dives here to see the Manta Rays who swoop in for a good clean. For tech customers, we do day dives here between 30m and 100m where we encounter the Threshers by ourselves over the side of the plateau.
• Dive Gato Island - A sanctuary and protected breeding location for the beautiful Sea Krait (sea snake). Were almost guaranteed to see the resident White Tip Reef Sharks. This island is alive with nudibranchs, Harlequin Ghost Pipefish, Pygmy Seahorses and an endless amount of other macro surprises. Gato is always tough for photographers macro or wide angle? We recommend diving Gato at least twice one with each set up!
• Dive Evolutions House Reef - The house reef is one of the best muck dives in the country. Just 3 minutes from the beachfront is an incredible array of macro delights. Here we repeatedly see pairs of Crinoid Squat Lobsters and Imperial Shrimps. At dusk, dozens of Bobtail Squid appear. Coconut Vein Octopi are regulars and we find seahorses on every dive. Snake Eels poke their head from the sand and Stargazers make occasional appearances too. Robust Ghostpipefish and an array of Mantis Shrimp species are also part of the Evolution House Reef experience. And thats just for starters.
• Dive The Dona Marylin - This Philippine ferry capsized over 15 years ago and is now a living, breathing wreck. It takes time to explore all the features and remember those who were lost. It is the perfect location for the PADI Wreck
• Specialty. For tech customers, this is an excellent penetration dive with lots of multilevel deep passages to explore. Not qualified to do safe wreck penetrations? Well sign up for our TDI Advanced Wreck Course and give yourself the ultimate diving challenge.
• Dive The Lighthouse - Another northern site, this is everyones favorite night dive. As a photographer, David insists this is the best place to try and capture spawning Mandarin fish in Asia. Our males are big and brazen here and are not put off their mating quest by joyous divers. Lots of nocturnal critters appear after sunset and we love the minute Bobtail Squid that only an expert can find.
• Dive The Tapilon - Nicknamed after a nearby village, this Japanese WWII wreck has been torn asunder by local salvagers sometimes to the benefit of divers. You can still see artillery and ammunition strewn around the site and even the skeletal remains of an unfortunate Japanese sailor. A slice of history on our doorstep.
• Dive The Mogami Maru - For tech customers only, this WWII Japanese Wreck lies in just over 50m. It stands upright and is a perfect decompression dive. Ammunition is still scattered inside the hull again real history on display.
• Dive Lapus Lapus - One of the most popular local sites with a wide selection of macro critters from frogfish to nudibranchs and everything in between. Search for the critters nestling amongst the gardens of soft corals waving in the breeze, or stick your head into the small cave to look for cleaner shrimp hiding behind the school of glassfish.

The Thresher Sharks Of Malapascua

Malapascua is about the only place in the world where recreational divers can encounter Thresher Sharks on a near daily basis. Thresher Sharks are natural deep dwellers, spending the vast majority of their time at depths well below recreational and often Technical diving limits.

Local fishermen have known for decades, if not centuries that Monad Shoal is home to Thresher Sharks. Fishermen have been attracted by the fishing potential of the sunken plateau that is Monad Shoal and while there they would regularly see a Thresher Shark breaching. The Thresher Shark is one of a few species that likes to leap from the water and our boat crew (and occasionally customers) still witness this behavior on a weekly basis. As news of this breaching phenomenon spread it was eventually investigated by divers coming through the area on Liveaboards.

Of course, the Thresher Shark is not the only visitor to Malapascua, with giant Pelagic Mantas, Devil Rays, White Tip Reef Sharks and Grey Reef Sharks spotted and cataloged with great frequency. Incredibly, these creatures often share the same cleaning station at the same time a behavior almost unheard of. The Thresher Shark is of course famous for its beguiling long tail. It is understood that The Thresher Shark uses its tail to hunt, whipping it with such ferocity that it stuns prey such as squid, sardines and perhaps juvenile tuna. The Thresher Shark does not predate on Crustacea like many other species of shark.

The Thresher Shark is an endangered species and remains vulnerable to extinction, especially due to its low fecundity, or frequency of reproduction. Amazingly the Thresher Shark always gives birth to two pups, one male and one female, and how this occurs remains a mystery. The female Thresher Shark also gestates for a non-specific length of time.

She may opt to give birth early if she feels there is a bountiful food supply, or she may delay delivery by some time in order to find a more suitable location. Once delivered, the female Thresher Shark gives her newborn no further maternal care. The Thresher Shark pups are born fully formed and are delivered folded over allowing them to start their life already equipped with their scythe-like tail.

To see a Thresher Shark here in Malapascua is a once in a lifetime experience and one we love sharing with our divers. However we dont want to prevent the next generation of divers from seeing a Thresher Shark so we require all customers to respect the already damaged reef and to not contribute further to the degradation of one of the most important marine sites in Asia. Good buoyancy and a respect for the environment are prerequisites for a Thresher Shark dive at Monad Shoal, something we believe all divers should aspire to!!

Evolution is the leading specialist for Thresher Shark encounters in the world. Like all dive shops, we bring our recreational customers to see the Thresher Sharks in the morning. However, we are the only dive center capable of bringing our customers to see the Thresher Sharks at depths ranging from 30 meters to 100 meters. Evolution has logged hundreds of shark sightings at various depths including a recent and incredible encounter at 100 meters during an Advanced Trimix Dive.

Dive Center Information

• Evolution is constantly replacing and upgrading their equipment for rental and they do all their own servicing so it is guaranteed that everything is done to the highest European standards.
• They are an internationally recognized Aqualung Partner Centre and have only Apeks regs for customers.
• The TDI Five Star Instructor Training Facility and PADI Resort is equipped with Nitrox (and Helium) for certified divers (and if youre not yet certified, it can be arranged too with a course) and they use aluminum 80l tanks.
• The rental tanks have a DIN fitting but there are adaptors for any customers who use Yoke.
• For the students there is an indoor classroom so you can learn and study in comfort. And if youre a Photographer there is a camera room at your disposal with both 110V and 220V.
• Evolution has top of the line facilities for tech, trimix and CCR rebreather diving. They offer rental equipment, various tank sizes and even sidemount training and equipment.

Practical Information

• Electricity: 110 & 220 V
• Time zone: UTC+8
• Languages: Filipino & English
• Accept Credit Cards?: Yes, MasterCard & Visa