Kimud Shoal

The dive

Kimud Shoal is a sunken island east of Malapascua, in Leyte waters at the edge of the Visayan Sea. Its summit sits at about 12 m - some operators give the plateau as 12 to 23 m - and its sides fall away past 200 m. Boats run about sixty minutes and leave in the dark, between roughly 05:00 and 08:00, because the whole dive is built around the dawn window when pelagic thresher sharks come up to the cleaning stations on top of the shoal. Since 2022 operators report the threshers appearing at Kimud more often than at Monad Shoal, with shallower and closer encounters.

The other reason to be here is scalloped hammerheads. They school in the blue off the mound during the winter months, and the season is variously given as November to February or December through April or May, with historic reports of schools of well over a hundred animals towards the end of it. Be honest with yourself about the odds: Malapascua operators now say plainly that hammerheads are very occasional and never guaranteed, and that you should not come expecting them. Occurrence records for the shoal are overwhelmingly pelagic thresher, with whitetip reef shark and an ordinary reef list behind it.

The terrain itself is not the attraction. The top of the shoal is a compact area of low coral outcrops on rough ground; what makes it worth a pre-dawn boat is the water above and beside it. Devil rays, eagle rays, tuna and other large sharks are reported alongside the threshers.

Kimud has been declared a Marine Protected Area and ecotourism zone by the Leyte local government, and it now carries a written rule set that materially changes who can dive it. Snorkelling and freediving are prohibited outright. Discover Scuba experiences, try dives and Open Water training dives are prohibited. Open Water divers with fewer than fifty logged dives must be accompanied by an instructor or divemaster, and Open Water and Advanced divers under fifty dives must complete a buoyancy workshop first. In the water you stay five metres from the sharks, inside the guide's designated viewing area, off the cleaning stations, with no strong lights on the animals and no reef hooks, pointers or gloves.

• Pelagic thresher sharks on the cleaning stations at first light, at around 12 m
• A seamount summit at 12 m with flanks dropping past 200 m
• Scalloped hammerheads schooling in the blue in the winter months - seasonal and unreliable
• Devil rays, eagle rays, tuna and other large sharks in the blue
• One of the shallowest shark dives anywhere, which is what makes the encounters close

Conditions

An open-water seamount an hour east of Malapascua, dived at first light. The summit is around 12 m, the plateau is variously given as 12 to 23 m, and the sides drop past 200 m. Current is steady and can be strong, and the site is commonly dived on nitrox. Water runs 26-29 C from March to December and 24-26 C in January and February. The dry season from January to June has calmer seas and more reliable crossings; from July to December the boat is cancelled more often.

On current: Operators describe the current as steady, and one lists Kimud as a strong-current, nitrox-suitable site; we take the conservative reading and record it as strong. No source publishes a visibility figure for the shoal itself, so none is recorded - the Malapascua regional range is 15-30 m and better in the dry season, but that is not a measurement of an exposed seamount at dawn. Depth: the summit is 12 m and the recorded maximum for the site is 40 m, on flanks that keep going past 200.

Dives & underwater footage