Apo reef is the second largest in the world contiguous coral reef system covering 34 sq km – a part of a protected area managed by the Apo Reef Natural Park. You can see sharks, tuna, barracuda, variety of reef fish and coral reefs in a very good condition.
Visibility is up to 40 meters during dry season between December and May. Apo reef, along with Tubbataha are probably the only places in the Philippines where you can see big stuff (plus Malapascua for thresher sharks).
What to see
Logistics
Apo reef is about 30km offshore. The tiny island in the park only has a ranger station and a lighthouse and no tourist accommodation. The best way to dive Apo reef is as a part of a liveaboard trip. Our Apo reef diving trip was part of Around Mindoro trip on Rags II liveaboard. Rags II is a very large traditional style banca purpose build for diving. The organization of the dive operation is superb and crew is wonderful. The guys running the Rags boat are highly experienced tech divers and also organize tech diving trips including for wrecks and caves (plentiful in Mindoro-Coron vicinity).
A number of liveaboard operators have routes that include Apo reef including transition trips at the beginning and end of season for Tubbataha – which is a nice option if you want to cover both Apo and Tubbataha in one trip in the Philippines. There are also several operators that organize day trips and overnight trips from Sablayan, Pandan island and from Coron.
Even though Sablayan – the departure point for Apo reef – is on Mindoro island, and looking on the map one would think it should be easy to combine Puerto Galera dive trip with Apo reef trip, it is not quite the case. The circumference road of Mindoro has a crucial bit missing in its north east corner, which means that one can not drive from Puerto Galera to Sablayan along shorter eastern route but has to go along the western shore, and pretty much drive all around the island to get to Sablayan which would take at least 8 hours. Alternative and faster way is to take a boat to Abra from Puerto Galera and then drive to Sablayan. If you have time, this is an option, but if time is limited, the best option is to go with a liveaboard.
It is best to dive during the dry season between December and May when seas are usually calm and visibility is excellent. Some operators still run trips through rainy and typhoon season and you may have a perfectly good trip. But chances of storm coming in are not small and trip can be cancelled at short notice.
All in all – definitely worth the effort!