Malapascua,

surprised me with its charm and energy

I finally left Siquijor after 2 and a half weeks. I could have easily stayed longer but also wanted a change of scenery so I decided to go to Malapascua (MP). I travelled to Cebu with friends from my hostel, and we went for lunch before heading to our different destinations. We asked a waiter to take a photo of us and later one of the girls shared the pictures.

When I saw these photos I was horrified. What happens when you regularly see a picture of yourself and you’re filled with disgust because all you can see is how fat you look? Is it the angle? 3 hours of sleep the night before? Being on my period? Not exercising for a week due to a bike accident? Or is it because I might have some form of body dysmorphia? I often return to the question of how to keep yourself safe and healthy when travelling and without your established support networks. It took me a long time to realise you can’t always trust your brain. It’s not always right because my version of reality isn’t always real, because all our realities are entirely subjective if you think about it.

Maybe I do look fat but what about the intense self-loathing that immediately follows and lingers? What about the additional loathing when I remind myself it’s a first-world problem? But hating yourself is still a problem, pushing it away doesn’t help, and pretending I’m fine doesn’t help. Acknowledging it and working to return to a healthier state of mind is the best option but that takes a lot of energy, and when you feel like shit that energy is in short supply. So when this happens I write, listen to music, message friends, and remind myself that there’s more to me than my body weight. Growing up self-worth felt intrinsically linked to appearance. Especially as I grew up in an environment with minimal diversity and when social media barely existed, where I was a minority, and, therefore, not the ‘norm’ of what’s considered attractive. Turns out this conditioning takes a while to unlearn and dismantle; it’s a work in progress. I don’t know if I will ever truly feel differently but I know I don’t want to spend my energy hating myself.

I met someone at my homestay en route to MP, and he was meeting up with a friend to go diving on the island. He asked if I knew of any good dive shops, I’d been given the name of a dive centre by my divemaster in Cebu. I didn’t go to MP specifically to dive, because I was still anxious about diving in general but knew this island was a diver’s paradise. I tagged along when Helori and Célia went to discuss dive options and I ended up diving with them for 2 days. I signed up for a night dive, although I was fairly nervous I thought it would be a good time to try it. I lost my mask as we started the night dive, which cost £75 (equivalent to 3 dives there). I’m not sure why I decided an unpaid sabbatical was the time to start diving; an expensive hobby. I didn’t end up doing the night dive, having swum back and forth to the dive spot against the current (because along with my lost mask, someone lost their weight belt). I was exhausted and didn’t feel strong enough to continue. I’m proud of myself because a few years ago I would have forced myself to dive because quitting would have felt weak and pathetic.

I loved seeing the Thresher sharks. They are real-life Disney characters, with massive round eyes, iridescent skin, and fins half the size of their bodies. However, on my favourite dive in MP, we didn’t see anything ‘extraordinary’ but the whole time underwater was magical. I felt completely relaxed, and I started trusting my breathing more, everything looked incredible and time flew by. I also love the chance involved in diving. A Tiger shark was spotted a few days after I left, it wasn’t my time to see it. Even better, our Danish friends from the hostel saw that Tiger shark on one of their first fun dives after completing the Open Water course. What are the odds?

I met really lovely people at my hostel, including the staff working there. Alex and Luis were in my dorm. Alex was from Wales and we got on immediately, it was also comforting to hear a Welsh accent. At one point when we were walking to the Marketplace for dinner, there was me and 5 very tall men, it was giving comical pimp vibes. Luis and I ended up sharing a mini seafood feast for dinner, the highlight though were the garlic skewers. Someone from my diving boat was incidentally staying at the same hostel but in a private bungalow. Fabian has completed nearly 1,500 dives and speaking to him about diving was fascinating. It turned out we were both in Koh Lanta at the same time earlier this year, where he was freelancing as a DM, sometimes the world really is small.

I went to the northern side of the island for sunset one evening, with Steven, another hostel friend. On the walk there he wanted to tell me about his recent cave expedition in Vietnam and the history behind it. I felt this would likely be another instance of humouring a man whilst he talked at me, but I was pleasantly surprised when this was not the case. By the end, I was convinced I had to go and camp in this cave, it sounded and looked unreal. The cost is also unreal, $3,000 or just under £2,000, so perhaps one for when I have an income again. The sunset that evening was stunning, we also walked back and saw countless stars, it was beautiful. Star-gazing in PH is a delight.

I really liked this island’s vibe, the Marketplace where people gather in the evening to eat and drink, Villa Potenciana for good food and great live music, and the Diver Gems bar for late-night karaoke and more drinking. Dancing with friends is one of my favourite things, in Siquijor I went to a party in a basketball court, and they had another one here, it was so much fun. There was a lot of drinking and dancing, but I developed a nasty cough. It feels like everyone in PH smokes and I don’t but in the last few weeks, I’d been smoking a lot. It was when I was sneezing and coughing during a dive and there was some blood that I decided this was the end of my drunk-smoking. I was disappointed that I’d already booked to go to the next island, I would have loved to stay longer in MP, but I was hopeful I’d bump into some of the friends I’d made here. The list of islands I want to return to is growing and MP is high on that list. I want to come back and see the beautiful Thresher sharks again.