Malapascua

Malapascua is a small island to the north of Cebu. I'd have bet a thousand pesos that 'mala pascua' meant 'bad Easter', but apparently the Visayans have decided that 'pascua' should mean Christmas, even though it means Easter in Spanish. The name comes from the Spanish sailors who arrived on the island one stormy Christmas night sometime in the 1500s.

Nowadays, Malapascua is a developing resort island, with a fair number of beachside hotels but still mostly rural. The beach is nice enough:


And you can go snorkeling:


There are some rather beautiful corals on the ocean floor and supposedly some manta rays and plankton-eating sharks, but I didn't see them.

For some reason, there are throngs of Germans and Austrians everywhere - to the point where the local guides are as likely to speak German as English.