Kimud Shoal

Kimud Shoal is a submerged plateau off Daanbantayan, reached by boat from Malapascua, known among divers for thresher sharks that rise from deep water to visit cleaning stations along its upper slopes. Dive boats out of Malapascua typically leave between 5 and 8 in the morning for a two- or three-dive trip, working depths of roughly 12 to 22 meters on the shoal itself. It’s an experienced-diver site by policy as much as by feel: Open Water divers can join with an instructor, but the standard expectation is Advanced Open Water with a divemaster, and current can run strong enough depending on tide that this isn’t a casual reef dive for anyone underprepared for it.

Kimud is one of three sites — alongside Monad Shoal and Gato Island — that local dive shops informally group together as the reason Malapascua built its reputation as one of the few places on earth where divers can reliably see thresher sharks on a daily basis. Thresher sharks are listed as vulnerable on the global conservation status scale most dive operators cite, which is part of why the cleaning-station dives here run under fairly strict guide protocols: no chasing, no flash photography close to the animals, and a set distance divers are expected to hold. The sharks themselves come up from deeper water specifically to have parasites cleaned off by smaller reef fish at these stations, a behavior that’s become reliable enough at Kimud to build a whole segment of Daanbantayan’s dive economy around it.

• Thresher shark and occasional hammerhead sightings cluster around the cleaning stations on the shoal’s upper slopes, most reliably on early trips before boat traffic picks up.
• Walls and drop-offs around the plateau carry solid coral cover for the rest of the dive once the sharks move off the cleaning stations.
• Minimum certification is Open Water with an instructor; Advanced Open Water with a divemaster is the more typical arrangement dive shops book for this site.
• Season shapes the dive: March to June brings the calmest seas and best visibility (20 to 30 meters), November to February runs choppier with visibility often down to 10 to 15 meters, and July to October’s wetter habagat season brings occasional storms but also the year’s lowest prices.
• Local dive operators build day trips around Kimud alongside Monad Shoal and Gato Island, part of a small-boat dive economy that’s become a steadier income source than fishing alone for some of Daanbantayan’s coastal barangays.

That shift matters more than it might sound. Daanbantayan’s coastal households were fishing communities well before Malapascua’s dive scene existed, and the shark-diving economy that’s grown up around sites like Kimud hasn’t replaced that base so much as diversified it — boat crews, dive guides, gear technicians, and the resorts and eateries that cluster around Malapascua’s dive shops all draw from the same pool of coastal families who once relied on the catch alone. The sharks that make Kimud worth the early wake-up are, in that sense, now worth more to the local economy alive and returning to the cleaning station than they would be as bycatch — a fairly direct case for why the conservation status and the tourism economy here reinforce each other rather than compete.

Explore More in North Cebu Mainland

• Sandira Beach
• Odlot Hideaway Beach
• Balidbid Lagoon