Day 74. Malapascua Island, Philippines. The abyss.

Keen followers of this journal may remember when we were in The Cook Islands and I decided not to go diving on the day Wend saw Humpback whales, Eagle rays and a Reef shark.

Not to worry, I thought, we'll see plenty of marine life when we get to The Philippines.

So it was with great anticipation yesterday when we went on a Manta Ray dive. The dive-master telling us there was a ninety percent chance of spotting these huge, majestic beasts at close quarters.

We saw nothing.

Then today we were up at the crack for the early morning dive to see Malapascua's famous Thresher sharks. There are loads of them living just a 20 minute boat ride from our hotel. And although timid, they're normally quite happy to allow teams of Scuba enthusiasts to swim within touching distance.

We saw nothing.

My record of not seeing animals on this trip is fast becoming the stuff of legend. Remember that David Attenbrough series 'Life on earth'? Well, the BBC have approached David Smith to film the sequel; 'No life on earth'.

UPDATE+++UPDATE+++UPDATE+++UPDATE+++UPDATE

Went on a torch-lit night dive to look for Sea-horses.

Saw one!

BBC phoned to cancel the contract.

Day 73. Malapascua Island, Philippines. Season's Greetings.

A very merry Christmas to all our readers - and an apology for the lack of photos, Internet connection is very poor here.

80 degrees in the shade this morning as we exchanged Christmas gifts over breakfast. I'll only list the novelty items: some sheep-dip eau de cologne called 'Shearer' for Jan, a pair of haddock shaped flip flops which look quite cute on Wend and a pair of penis shaped flip flops which look completely ridiculous on me.

Everyone a little jaded after last night's celebrations, so after some diving in the morning spent the day taking it easy on the beach.

Boon put in an appearance while we were having dinner. Judging by the state he was in, I don't think taking it easy had been on his Christmas agenda.

TRIVIA NOTE: Malapascua means 'bad Christmas' in the local lingo. Something to do with an explorer who landed here on Christmas day 300 years ago to look for provisions and found nothing but mosquitoes.

Day 72. Malapascua Island, Philippines. Another day another disco.

Malapascua is a blink and you'll miss it kind of island. Just 2 miles from tip to tip yet choc-a-bloc with tropical gorgeousness. It'll be home for the next 5 nights, and to be honest, there are probably worse places to spend Christmas.

Did some diving and loafing during the day but the real fun began at sunset when we met Boon, a retired merchant seaman from Singapore who laughs like a demented Hyena and would stroll to Gold in any drinking Olympic games. Passed a riotous couple of hours in his company in preparation for the island Christmas shindig.

Midnight mass is big news here and Malapascua's only church was filled to overflowing. We stood outside for a while listening to the singing before Roquisa - one of the local ladies - invited us to her house for some nibbles.

Quite a humbling experience. The flat was little bigger than our front room in London, yet 11 of them live happily in the 2 rooms. The people here are so open and friendly, and Roquisa thought nothing of sharing her family's Christmas nosh with 6 inquisitive tourists (we'd been joined by Anka and Renka, a dutch couple who'd we'd met diving).

Church was kicking out by the time we finished and there was a big disco starting on the adjacent basketball court. This of course gave me and the Janster (a.k.a the Travolta twins) another opportunity to strut our funky stuff.

This time the crowd remained unimpressed. Very confusing.

Day 71. Malapascua Island, Philippines. Disco inferno.

Any journey through a new country is interesting, so despite the 4 of us plus luggage being squeezed into a small taxi the three hour drive to the northern tip of Cebu Island went pretty quickly.

Undoubted highlight was passing an open air Christmas disco which at 3 in the afternoon was jumping with hundreds of hot Philippino lovelies (not sure where all the blokes were - too cool to boogie I imagine).

Such were the screams of adulation as me and Jan made our entrance that for a minute I thought Robbie Williams must've sneaked in behind us. But no, a circle quickly formed as we stepped onto the dance floor and the tears of frustration as the poor girls realised we were already spoken for were genuine. After throwing some of our best moves for a minute or two, whipping the crowd into a sea of unrequited lust, we blew them a kiss and ran back to the taxi.

Donald the driver later put a pin in our inflated egos by explaining that tourists seldom visit the neighbourhood and it was merely the novelty of seeing a couple of podgy middle aged geordies that had caused such a commotion.

Silly of him really - if he'd told us they weren't used to seeing such handsome beasts he'd have been looking at a far bigger tip.