Rank your favorite Shark Dives in Asia Pacific

Starting to make rough plans for dive trips in the next 2-3 yrs...

While I just came back from Palau and I'm scheduled for the Cocos in Aug 2007 and Galapagos in 2008, I'd like to hear from fellow wetpixel'ers on their favorite Shark dive sites in the Asia Pacific... Fakarava seems to be favorite in terms of sheer # of sharks (seen Eric's pics from his 05 trip )? Fiji? Layang Layang (doesn't sound as consistent)? Am I missing any others? Hammerheads, bulls, tigers, etc...

Dude, what kind of action do you want? Chumming and feeding? Natural baitballs? Just swimming around? Mating?

Of the top of my head in the Asia Pacific area:

Philippines, Malapascua Island : Thresher sharks (cleaning station)

PNG, Milne Bay : Silver tips (fed)

Australia, Sydney/Jervis Bay : Mating Port Jackson sharks (boring but cool to watch)

French Polynesia and the other eastern Pacific sites you already know about. But there is a whole ocean and continent you're missing for sharks.

thanks for starting the list Drew. Actually that's a good point about clarifying if the dives involve chumming, feeding, baitballs,... I'm pretty open to any of that

Malapascua/ Monad Shoal, done that... those threshers are beautiful

PNG - sounds interesting... will have to research that.

Now when you say - "there is a whole ocean and continent you're missing for sharks" Are we talking the Americas or Bahamas (Atlantic)... or South Africa (Indian Ocean)... ?

Wow - that's a tough one pakman. I've been spending all my hard earned cash over the last few years to fly from Singapore to North and Central America to video a few sharks as the bloody Chinese seem to have eaten anything larger than a dogfish over here.

OK *rant off*

Layang Layang can be good in the season for hammerheads, but not as reliable as Cocos or Galapagos.

One usually sees a few reef sharks in the currents off the Maldives, but you'll see many more mantas. Lot's of white tip reef sharks at night too, but that's probably old hat for you.

The threshers in the Philippines at Malapashqua have become less reliable, although they turn up at the strangest places - we had one swim through us on a dive at Crystal Bay in Bali a while back.

Whale sharks are very dependable at Donsol south of Legaspi in the Philippines, but that is snorkeling only and the viz sucks. We saw around 45 over three days but for only about 2 minutes each! Better to go to Belize, although they are semi reliable in places around the Andamans.

I'm hoping that Raja Ampat has a few sharks left, but we never saw many other than epaulettes a year or so back, and after seeing shawnh and jbonehoss video and photos it seems the finners are there too!

Probably the best places to see specifically sharks over this side of the globe IMHO would be off the Barrier Reef and the Coral Sea, eg like Osprey Reef, but I don't know whether you'd consider that Asia.....

There are probably tons of secret Asian shark places I don't know about - eg I believe Komodo has a shark or two. But the biggest concentration of sharks I've seen here is at couple of shops behind Boat Quay in Singapore, but that's another rant .....

Wow - that's a tough one pakman. I've been spending all my hard earned cash over the last few years to fly from Singapore to North and Central America to video a few sharks as the bloody Chinese seem to have eaten anything larger than a dogfish over here.

 

OK *rant off*

Nick, bingo... that's my dilemma... Here I am working in the city with the biggest market for sharkfin... complaining about the lack of sharks in Asian waters...

I'm kicking myself for not doing more diving while I was in the US. Now, I'm finding like you that I've gotta spend big $$$ to fly myself half way around the globe for the good stuff... While I can deal with the cup of noodles I'll diet on in order to finance these trips, its the time away from work that's limiting me... anyways, enough of my sob story...

Haven't been to Donsol but had a chance to dive with whalesharks in Southern Leyte.

Komodo, I think I vaguely remember seeing 1 small shark couple years ago...

Australia... hmm... that's a good suggestion... Good flight connections from HK and no jetlag issues...

Philippines, Malapascua Island : Thresher sharks (cleaning station)

Do you know what species of thresher shows up at Malapascua? Is it pelagics, commons, or bigeyes?

Do you know what species of thresher shows up at Malapascua? Is it pelagics, commons, or bigeyes?

not the best photo, but this is one from Malapascua from last summer. Not 100% sure but I think they are common threshers, Alopias vulpinus maybe?

Nice photo Pacman! We're hopefully going to book a trip to Malapascua in the next week or so. I'm keeping my fingers crossed to see one that close - but hey just seeing one would be enough!

Cheers, Simon