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I absolutely love diving in the Philippines! I think it’s where I’ve had the clearest conditions and saw so many things big and small. There are so many different places to try, and I feel like I’ve only touched the surface!

Anilao & Puerto Gallera are both driving distance from Manila. Malapascua, Panglao are both ferry rides away from Cebu Island.

Anilao (Batangas)

Known for its abundance of Macro (tiny) critters. The best season is Feb – May. I’ve been in end of January (bring a wetsuit) and again in end of July. Both times the diving was great. I had great weather in July but it is typhoon season so be aware of that when booking.

I’ve I stayed at Eagle Point Resort (Feb 2013) and also the Aquaventure Reef Club (July 2015). Both packages were inclusive of food so we had all our meals here. Eagle Point is a little nicer and the beds are a little more comfortable than Aquventure. But both were fine as far as dive resort accommodations and both have friendly staff. Eagle Point charged $20 USD a day for wifi while it was free at Aquaventure. We never left either resort other than to dive so I can’t really say much about anything else in Anilao. I recently saw that they were a lot of other and nicer resorts in the area. Just ask your Dive shop. Dennis (Anilao Critters, below) arranged everything (hotel, transportation, dives) for me which was nice because it was all coordination and billing was all through one person.

Aquaventure rate: Twin sharing: PHP 2,650/person/Night includes all meals (buffet). You can also do an ala carte option if you don’t want to include the buffet.

The dive outfit or the hotel will arrange the pickup and drop off to Manila it’s about a 3 hour drive to the resort and is 4900 Pesos each way (per car, so the more people the cheaper)

Both times I was in Anilao instead of using Eagle Point’s or Aquaventure Dive shop, we used Anilao Critters & Resorts because they came recommended by friends (and the second time by me). The Dive Shop’s owner is Dennis and he’s great. It’s a very good outfit, professional, friendly and great DM’s and Instructors. He handled arranging my hotels, transportation and diving which was very convenient. They picked us up from our resort every day. Dives cost about 1500 PHP each (inclusive of park fees and boat fee) plus equipment rental (1300 PHP a day for full gear).

Dennis M. Corpuz
http://www.anilaocritter.com/
Email: inquiry@anilaocritter.com
Email: reservations@anilaocritter.com
Email: dcorpuz88@yahoo.com.ph   (Personal email)
PHILIPPINES:
(+63) 0915 292 2772 Mobile (Globe)
(+63) 0920 716 7866 Mobile (Smart)

In Anilao you’re going to see Nudi’s, Scorpion Fish, Lion Fish on every dive so you can pre-fill your log book with those. If you don’t see those then you’re diving with your eyes closed. You’ll also likely see Mantis Shrimp, frog and giant frog fish, some seahorses, octopus, ghost pipefish and lots of other macro critters.

Some Dive Sites I remember:

• Caban Cove – good for a starter drive, especially with newbies. Coral garden, about 22m
• Kirby’s Rock – Wall Dive, I really enjoyed this one.
• Layag Layag – 4 star coral dive on a big site, it actually leads into Bahura.
• Bahura – 5 star Coral Dive. There’s actually two spots near this location and both are great.
• Sombrero – Fun coral dive. It’s off an island that looks like a hat.
• Twin Rocks – Nice coral garden dive. I think this one has a cave at 30m where you can see some marble shrimp.
• Dead Palm – Nice coral garden dive
• Secret Bay – Sand & Shallow and great for photography. Mantis, sea horse, octopus, flying Gurnard, Frog fish; also there are hot springs here (look carefully for misty water rising from the sand)
• Anilao Pier – Awesome for night dives. Saw several octopus, lots of crabs, calamari, other random stuff. It’s a grass bottom dive with a lot of urchins so control your buoyancy so you don’t kick up the sand…
• Balanoi (Secret Garden) when I did this the current was really strong, so much so we had to abort the dive so I didn’t really enjoy it. But another crew went like 15 minutes after us and the current was dead, so they had a better time.
• Cathedral Rock – Another dive with strong current pulling us down so it wasn’t too enjoyable the first half but then the second half was a nice easy current drift over a nice coral garden.
• One of these had a sunken restaurant frame (the frame of about a 4 story building). It may have been Sepoc Wall, you can just ask the dive outfit.

Puerto Gallera

Also about 2.5 hours from Manila with a 30-45 min boat ride (near Anilao). Had some great diving here. More technical and diverse with types of dive (wall, current, coral, beach, sand) but still a lot of critters for photography. I stayed at the Atlantis Hotel. It was inclusive of diving and food and honestly the food was pretty amazing. There are some cheaper places on the island but the food was so good I wouldn’t probably stay anywhere else. They also have a nice camera room with lots of bench space, all covered with towels, compressed air and Air-conditioning. VERY convenient. They also gave us a good discount for the full board (all inclusive) package. They offer a full board and a half board (no meals) package. We ended up paying the half board rate for full board package with very little haggling.

What we ended up paying:

Vacation rate is US$930.00 for the 1st person + US$465.00 for the 2nd person = US$1,395.00 (1 room 2 beds)

Roundtrip transfer is US$200 x 2 persons = US$400.00 (but we ended up using Puerto Galera Online Services” puertogalerainfo@gmail.com for transportation at $340 USD (15,000 PHP)

Original Full board quote:  Party of 2, 4 night @ Atlantis Hotel for US$850 per person

INCLUSIONS:

• All taxes included (regular rate is US$960 per person).
• Accommodation in a standard room(double occupancy)
• All meals at Toko’s Restaurant (breakfast drinks, Italian and specialty coffees are included)
• Coffee, tea and filtered water are available from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm (Italian and specialty coffees are not included after breakfast)
• Unlimited internet access
• Unlimited scheduled boat diving (up to 5 dives a day including night diving); excludes equipment rental, dawn dives, day trips and nitrox fills)

While on PG, check out the dive shops I got a great deal on a brand new front-zip 3mm full wetsuit ($65 USD). Night life wasn’t anything to write home about but we were there for diving and slept early anyways.

Cebu

I did some good diving here but I was pretty novice at the time so I can’t remember much as to what I saw and I was always looking for the big stuff and not the macro stuff. I do remember swimming through a small 4 seat plane. There are certainly better places for experienced divers but Cebu is probably good for a beginner. The good thing about Cebu is that you can do beaches/other stuff if you don’t want to solely dive and it’s easy to get to (direct flights to/from). I stayed at the Hilton (which is now a Movenpick) next door to the Shangri-La on Mactan Island.

When I transit through Cebu for other destinations I usually stay at:

The Bellavista Hotel
M.L. Quezon National Highway Pusok, Lapu Lapu City 6015
It’s very close to the airport which they also have a shuttle service for.

Panglao (Bohol)

I stayed at Oasis Resort and their dive shop is the Seaquest Dive Center. This destination was some of clearest water I have ever dove in. I loved it. It’s a bit of a pain to get to, you have to fly to Cebu (direct flight) and then take a ferry 2.5 hours to Panglao then the hotel will pick you up and drive you 30 minutes to their hotel. But then you never have to leave that area until you’re leaving the island because there’s tons of fresh seafood and bbq up and down the beach from the Oasis. This is probably my favorite dive spot so far. Make sure you go on the longer excursion to Snake Island and a different Island (need to check my log book). The 2^nd island I saw 10+ sea turtles and the water was just amazing.

Malapascua

You’ll want to be Advanced Open Water to dive here because this is the one of the only places you’re almost guaranteed to see Thresher sharks but they’re at deeper depths. Thresher sharks are very cool looking with SUPER long tails. Google them! You don’t have to be Nitrox certified but you get to stay down longer if you are. Thresher dives are at 6am, then you have 3-4 other dives which were also fantastic. I saw lots of macro stuff, giant frog fish, octopus, Mandarin fish, a sea of live sand dollars, small sunken boat (this was one of my favorite dives, everything was pure white the sand, the creatuers, even a white peacock mantis shrimp!)….all in all a great dive location. Oh and there’s are some fantastic restaurants on the island. Especially the Italian restaurant Angelina’s for some amazing pizza. The restaurant at Exotic Island Dive Resort was very good too. These two restaurants are basically on opposite sides of the beach. There are a lot of other places to eat, but not much for night life otherwise, it is a Diving island.

The dive outfit I used was Thresher Shark Divers (TSD). Our DM was named Beats (or something like that) he was a good DM. The dive shop says to leave your flip-flops outside their front door but mine were stolen so I wouldn’t recommend doing that. The shop has really nice staff except the blonde woman, she was not nice at all.

They offer 4 dives a day as standard, 5 dives on request. Diving cost (per person) in PHP (check xe.com for current bank rate):

• 1 dives: P1,550 each (tanks, weights, boat, DM)
• 2+ dives: P1,450 each
• 5+ dives P1,400 each
• 10+ dives P1,300 each

Above does not include

• Marine park fee/tax: P150 per day
• Monad Shoal marine protection fee: P50 per dive (shark/manta dive only)
• Equipment rental: P350 per dive / 700 per day
• Night dive surcharge: +P250
• Longer trip fuel surcharge: P350 – 850 per person depending on destination

TSD will also help to arrange transfers and lodging (check website for updates):

• Slams – very close, 100m back from the beach but some seaview rooms. (P2,600-3,200) -> This is where I stayed
• Tepanee – a few minutes walk from the dive shop. Some seaview rooms. (P2,500-4,000)
• Cocobana – very close, some beachfront and seaview rooms. Pool (P2,500-3,700)
• Blue Coral – very close, some rooms with amazing seaviews, slightly cheaper. They also have a great deal on their garden view fan rooms. (P2,500-3,000)
• Ocean Vida and Legend – more expensive, a few minutes walk, a pool at Legend
• Malapascua Garden Resort, Celtis and Hilteys – a few minutes walk, less expensive rooms, off the main beach
• Cheaper options: you can save up to P900 per person per night if you prefer a fan room, even more if you want backpacker.

Transfers Round trip from Cebu (hotel or airport); private road and boat trip; shuttle boat and porter fees in Maya and Malapascua

• 1-2 pax: P9,000
• 3-5 pax: P12,000
• Night boat transfer +P800/P1,500 depending on time

Some Dive Sites I remember (besides the Thresher Sharks!):

• Lighthouse – Really great place for a Night Dive. Mandarin fish can be seen mating at dusk. lots of crabs
• Lapo Light – Good Night Dive
• Gato Island: Gato is a marine reserve and sea snake sanctuary. It has at least five dive sites with a huge diversity of marine life
• Gato Island: Whitetip Alley – You are almost guaranteed to find whitetip sharks sleeping under rocks, and if you are lucky you will see them circling.
• Gato Island: Nudibranch City – You figure it out!
• Chocolate Island – Another good Macro site
• Dona Marilyn – Wreck dive of a 100m ferry ship sunken in 1988. This was a bad dive when i did it. Very strong current, poor visibility and invisible jellyfish stinging us.

Puerto Princesa (Palawan)

We were staying here on vacation and dove out of the Moana Hotel’s dive center http://www.moanahoteldiving.com/. Paolo is the Italian guy running the dive shop. He was a really nice guy and helpful. His Dive Masters were also professional and nice. Two of my friends did their Open Water certification here and another did her Advanced Open Water Certification. I think the Advanced Open Water instructor was good but I don’t really think my friends who did their Open Water learned all that much. In my opinion the diving off of Puerto Princesa wasn’t that great compared to other sites but I’ve been spoiled. The other folks that dove really enjoyed themselves. It wasn’t a big deal because the purpose of this vacation was beach/underground river/ and other non-diving activities. We stayed down the street at the brand new (and awesome) Princesa Garden Resort.

Places I have yet to try:

El Nido (Palawan) 

Also on the island of Palawan (North side) there is diving. El Nido diving could be better than Puerto Princesa’s and you can do other stuff than just dive (Island hopping, beaches). It has better night life and I’ve heard better diving. See if you can fly closer to El Nido than flying into Puerto Princesa because it’s about a 7 hour drive from PP’s airport to El Nido.

Coron

Instead of diving from Palawan Island you can go to the island further north (also in the Palawan region) and there are some sunken WWII Japanese ships here so if you like wreck diving this would be great for a few days. Also check out crater lake as it has an amazing thermoscline and a cool mushy bottom. You’ll need to be Advanced Open Water to check them out though. Not much to do in Coron other than dive and beaches I’m told. Basically Coron is remote and not very developed compared other places in the Philippines. Advice from a friend on places to stay:

1. stay in the hills but I do not recommend that as you basically have nothing to do at night time there
2. stay in the town of Coron – walking distance from the center: we were at a Austria place “Princess of Coron”, very affordable and among standards of the Philippines – all was good except that they do not have breakfast so you go outside, and the owners are in love with cats so they have plenty of those animals. We also stayed at Corto del Mar for one night, this is a beautiful hotel, very well located, top service, good food – a bit more expensive but I warmly recommend this place.
3. Find a resort on an island nearby – prices are on the high side, but the scenery is beautiful, and usually they have their own boats and dive master so that’s convenient, and you are 10 min from the town by boat so it’s OK.

In terms of other activity, you can do the island hoping / snorkeling for two full days, as there are too much to be seen in one single day. Lots of beautiful beaches, very nice lagoon. Similar to El Nido.

Tubbataha Reef

This reef is about 9 hours boat ride from Palawan so you have to do a live aboard. I hear amazing things and definitely want to give it a try but I suggest you be Advanced for this site (I suggest that for any live aboard really)

Other sites I’ve heard of but know nothing about: Apo Island, Dumagete, Leyte (3.5 transport from Cebu) and lately I’ve heard great things about Moalboal.