For nearly two decades, if you wanted to dive with thresher sharks, you went to Monad Shoal. It was the site. The only known place in the world where pelagic threshers visited a cleaning station at recreational diving depths, every day. Monad Shoal put Malapascua on the map.
Then, in 2022, the sharks moved.
HOW WE FOUND OUT
It wasn’t dramatic. There was no single morning where every shark vanished from Monad and appeared somewhere else. It was gradual. Sightings at Monad started becoming less consistent. At the same time, local fishermen and boat captains started mentioning thresher sharks at another site nearby: Kimud Shoal.
We investigated. Sent boats out. Did exploratory dives. And there they were. Thresher sharks at Kimud, behaving exactly as they had at Monad: visiting a cleaning station, circling, presenting themselves to the cleaner wrasses. Only better.
WHAT’S BETTER ABOUT KIMUD
Several things, and they’re not subtle.
The sharks come shallower. At Monad, you often needed to be at 20 metres plus to see them, and encounters happened in a narrow window at depth. At Kimud, the sharks regularly come to 12 to 15 metres. That’s a huge difference for air consumption, bottom time, and comfort.
The sharks come closer. Whether it’s the topography of the cleaning station, the current patterns, or just the personality of the local thresher population, the encounters at Kimud are more intimate. The sharks pass nearer to divers. They linger longer. Some mornings, you’ll have a thresher shark circling within a few metres of you for minutes at a time.
The timing is better. Monad was famous for its predawn departures. You’d set your alarm for 4am, stumble onto a boat in the dark, and try to be at the cleaning station by first light. Miss the window, miss the sharks. At Kimud, the sharks appear through the morning and into the day. No more 4am alarms. Your holiday just got better.
And the sighting rate is extraordinary. Since the move, we’ve been logging the best thresher shark encounters in our 20-plus year history. Multiple sharks per dive is common. Four or five on a good morning is not unusual. On exceptional days, it’s even more.
WHY DID THEY MOVE?
Honestly? We don’t know for certain. Thresher sharks are not well studied, and cleaning station behaviour is complex. It could be related to changes in the cleaner wrasse population. It could be water temperature shifts. It could be that Kimud always had a cleaning station and we just didn’t know about it until the sharks made it obvious.
What we do know is that the move appears stable. The sharks have been consistently at Kimud for over a year now, and the sightings are only getting better. They still occasionally show up at Monad too, so it’s not a complete abandonment. But Kimud is clearly the main event.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU
If you dived Malapascua years ago and saw threshers at Monad, come back. Kimud is a different experience: shallower, closer, more relaxed. If you’ve never been, you’re coming at the best possible time. The shark diving here has never been this good.
We’ve updated all our shark dive packages to reflect the Kimud move. The boat ride is slightly different, the dive profile is adjusted, and the briefings are updated. But the essentials are the same: small groups, experienced guides, respect for the animals, and an encounter with one of the ocean’s most magnificent creatures.
Head to thresher-shark-divers.com for current shark dive packages and availability. The threshers are waiting at Kimud. They’re not going anywhere.