Verde Island located in the middle of the channel separating Luzon and Mindoro islands is one of the best places in the Philippines for seeing large schools of fish and walls with coral in pristine condition.  Currents are often strong including down currents and it is best to dive on a slack tide and with a reputable dive operator.

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Verde island is about 45 minutes trip by boat from Sabang, Puerto Galera and most dive shops run day trips with two dives out and a lunch on Verde island.

Dauin is excellent for muck diving and macro photography.  It is less than an hour drive from Dumaguete airport which has direct flights from Manila and Cebu.  Apo island is about forty minutes boat ride from Dauin and has nice walls with healthy coral and rich marine life including schools of jacks, barracuda and other fish as well as good macro. There is also plenty to explore on land around Dauin – waterfalls, hot springs and picturesque mountain views.

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Dauin is a small town located on southern coast of Negros island near the city of Dumaguete. There are multiple daily flights from Manila and Cebu to Dumaguete. One can take a bus, a jeepney, a tricycle or a taxi from the airport to Dauin. Without traffic the trip takes less than 30 minutes by taxi but with regular traffic it is good to give it an hour. Dumaguete is well connected with neighboring islands by ferry. If combining the trip to Dauin with a trip to Moalboal it is possible to take a ferry from Liloan on Cebu island to Sibulan port near Dumaguete. There is also a ferry going to Siquijor, Tagbilaran (Bohol) and Cebu.

There are several  dive resorts scattered along the beach from Dumaguete to Zamboanguita with higher concentration around Dauin. We stayed and dove with Thalatta resort in Zamboanguita and Bongo Bongo Divers in Dauin – both had excellent diving operations.  Thalatta is more of an upmarket option with a big pool and a superb restaurant.  Bong Bongo is a lower cost option located in Dauin right next to the beach – though not on the beach.  It has more of a backpacker vibe.

Dauin is becoming more popular with tourists.  In 2017 there were more operators with more and bigger boats running trips to Apo island and diving along Dauin compared to our first trip in 2014. One could say that Apo island is getting crowded under water during high season. Dauin itself it seems aspires to become a party destination. When we were there the town was organizing a concert on the beach with a huge stage and deafening sound system – which they started testing from 5am on the day of the concert. For now though it is still a small village with a few resorts and fantastic diving.

When not diving there are waterfalls and hot springs around Dauin to explore.  The easiest way to get around is to hire a motorbike.  There are two waterfalls in the area Casaroro and Pulangbato (Red rocks) falls.  Casaroro falls require a bit of a hike along the river bed with sizable boulders. The waterfall is very tall and you cannot really swim at the bottom of it.  Since it takes a bit of an effort to get to it there are few people around and we had it pretty much to ourselves.

Pulangbato falls are more easily accessible – parking lot is right next to the falls.  The waterfall has a large pool and has been more developed for tourism with a bunch of cabanas that one can rent for a picnic.  We made a strategic mistake of going to the falls on the weekend which also happened to be a public holiday The waterfalls were packed with people – mostly locals escaping the heat of Dumaguete and cooling in the waterfall pool.

Hotsprings are along the same road as Pulangbato falls and given the weekend situation hotsprings were also packed with people so we did not manage to enjoy a soak in the hotsprings.  The drive to Pulangbato falls is along a nicely paved road winding through the hills and offering nice views. All in all there is a nice combination of diving and topside activities around Dauin.  Falls and hotsprings thought are probably better during the week and definitely not during public holidays!

Padre Burgos in Southern Leyte is known as a place to snorkel with whale sharks migrating through Sogod bay.  We went around Christmas time hoping to see the whale sharks but they were not yet there – their migration patterns are not well understood. We still had a great time diving and exploring the area. Padre Burgos diving has good macro and coral reef in excellent condition.  

For now Southern Leyte is more of an off beaten track diving destination in the Philippines. There are only a couple of diveshops and not many divers, especially during the periods when whale sharks are not around. We enjoyed diving in small groups with no other dive boats around. There is also an excellent night diving at Padre Burgos jetty – probably among the best night dives we ever did. To take a break from diving we rented a motorbike and explored the area driving through hills, rice fields and along the ocean coast.

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There are a number of ways to get to Padre Burgos.  We flew to Tacloban which has direct flights from Manila and Cebu.  We then hired a taxi and drove south to Padre Burgos. The road is paved all the way and is in good condition.  We travelled in late December 2014 – about a year after typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) hit the area causing major destruction and loss of life. Key infrastructure including airport and main roads was fully functional when we travelled though most public and private building were still being repaired.

On the way from Tacloban to Padre Burgos you pass the Leyte Landing memorial commemorating the landing by General MacArthur in October 1944 marking an important moment in the liberation of the Philippines in WWII. The monument is very popular for photos and is one of the major tourist attractions in the area.

Once out of Tacloban the road passes through picturesque rice fields, climbs up and winds through the forested hills before descending to the coast of the Sogod Bay.  The road is in very good condition with traffic only picking up along the coast of Sogod Bay. Total journey from Tacloban to Padre Burgos took about 4 hours.

We stayed and dove with Peter’s Dive resort. The resort is on the beach of Sogod Bay and our room had a terrace overlooking the Bay with water within five meters of our doorstep. The diving operation is well organized and professionally run.  The staff is very friendly and accommodating. We spent Christmas night at the resort and had a delicious seafood feast -basically guests put together some money and the cook went to the market and bought fresh fish, prawns, crabs and cooked us superb seafood dinner.

We hired a motorbike and went around exploring the area.  There is a nice restaurant and bar at Southern Leyte Divers. Going further along the shore there is a very good restaurant Baybayon seafood at Kuting reef resort.  The restaurant is right on the beach with excellent sunset views. Since we were traveling during Christmas season every village along the road had some kind of a holy family installation – all very creative.

We were combining Padre Burgos trip with a trip to Bohol.  So after our stay in Padre Burgos we took a ferry from Hilongos – about two hour drive from Padre Burgos along the western shore. The ferry was a huge banca and the crossing took about four hours.  The schedules and departure points of the ferry seem to vary a lot – sometimes going from Maasin or Bato instead of Hilongos and stopping entirely during the rainy season. It is best to call the resorts and confirm what ferry options are available at the time.

On the day we were taking the ferry Hilongos had their town fiesta. So while we were waiting in the port for our ferry we could watch preparations including many decorated boats getting ready for a procession with lots of music and very festive crowds.

All in all it was a very nice trip to the part of the Philippines not yet fully discovered by tourists.  We had nice diving, ate great seafood, and got to see all sorts of local fiestas and celebrations even though we missed the whale sharks (we got to see them eventually on a trip to Donsol more on which is here).

Why go diving in Moalboal, Philippines

The main attraction for visiting Moalboal is diving or snorkeling with the sardines.  It’s definitely great fun diving with the huge school of sardines but there is much more to Moalboal. Diving along the reef and Pescador island is excellent for macro and we saw many frogfish, ghost pipefish, variety of nudibranchs, turtles, pygmy seahorses and even blue ring octopus.

Moalboal beach – or Panagsama beach to be more precise as this is where most hotels and restaurants are – is a very relaxed little beach town with many good food and drink options as well as places to stay. One can do land trips to waterfalls and go canyoning and hiking as well. Importantly Moalboal is relatively easy to access from Cebu.

We hear that sometimes divers see whale sharks and thresher sharks as well as tuna attacking sardine school in Moalboal.  Threshers were particularly common ten years ago we were told.  We did not see any of the big stuff – but it is still amazing to see a huge school of sardines in what is quite densely populated area. Hopefully as protection for marine life improves pelagics will be back too.

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Moalboal is on the southwest coast of Cebu island.  After flying to Cebu one can reach it by public bus – about 3 hours, or private transfer – around 2 hours.  Public bus drops you off on the main road and there is about 10 minute tricycle ride to the beach where most hotels and restaurants are. We always dived with Cebu Dive Center which is a well organized professional small diveshop right on the beach. Sardines were usually right in front of the diveshop – at the reef drop-off about 30 meters from the shore.  Diveshop has a beach bar where divers tend to congregate and swap stories – a very friendly and laid back place perfect for sundowners.

There are many options to stay – we liked Maya’s Native Garden. It is not on the beach but has nice very spacious traditional style cottages with all modern amenities. Their food was delicious too.  Panagsama beach and Moalboal area is developing with some speed and even in the three years that we have been visiting it we saw many new resorts being build and new restaurants open.  It is still though a small, laid back place with excellent diving not yet fully impacted by mass tourism (as of 2017). If you have a week or so Moalboal trip can be combined with a trip to Malapascua to see thresher sharks or Dauin with superb macro.

Why go diving in Malapascua

Monad shoal off the coast of Malapascua is a cleaning station for thresher sharks and you are almost guaranteed to see them there – the best chance to see them in the Philippines for sure. There is also nice diving around Gato Island and Malapascua itself as well as Dona Marylin ferry wreck. Malapascua island is small and relaxed with no cars and a nice sandy beach.

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Malapascua is a small island off the northern tip of Cebu island.  After flying to Cebu there is an option to arrange a private transfer – car and boat – or take a bus to Maya and then a ferry. Car ride takes about 3 hours and boat transfer is about 40 minutes to an hour depending on the weather.  Bus takes about an hour longer plus waiting for bus and ferry. If your time is limited it is best to take private transfer.

There are many diveshops on the island. We dived with Evolution which had an excellent diving operation including technical diving. Their restaurant was nice and friendly with good vibe.

Thresher shark dive usually leaves at about 5am in the morning. Monad Shoal is less than an hour boat ride from the shore. It is a sunken island with a bottom at about 25 meters.  The dive is basically to drop to 25 meters and wait for sharks to come to their cleaning station.  There is a rope tight to the bottom to fence off the cleaning station and divers align along the rope. From what we understood diveshops try to stagger their departure times a little but it still can get busy at the bottom.  Given the depth and the fact that the purpose of the dive is to see sharks at 25 meters it is best to dive on nitrox.  Extra few minutes of bottom time after air guys go up can mean more shark sightings!

In addition to thresher shark morning dive there are day trips to Gato island with 3 dives and lunch or combination of Dona Marylin and Gato also with lunch.  Gato island has a nice cave that one swims through with a chance to see sharks at the cave exit.  There is also nice macro with various nudibranchs, cuttlefish, variety of reef fish and pretty corals.  Dona Marylin is a large passenger ferry about 100m long that sunk in a typhoon about 20 years ago. It is overgrown with corals and is in good condition laying at recreational depth of 18-32 meters.

Dives around Malapascua itself are good for macro with frog fish, flamboyant cuttlefish, ghost pipefish and other photogenic marine life. There is also a sunset dive to see mandarin fish.  All in all Malapascua trip is very well worth it and can also be combined with a trip to Moalboal on southwestern side of Cebu island.

Whale shark at Manta Bowl, Donsol, Philippines

Why go diving in Donsol

Donsol is one of the best places in the world to see whale sharks.  Whale sharks aggregate in the area between December and June with peak season between February and May. In Donsol Bay whale sharks come up close to the surface to feed. Whale sharks are protected and it is only allowed to snorkel with them in Donsol Bay.

Manta Bowl is a shoal at about 20 meters deep in the middle of a channel between Luzon and Ticao islands. It is about 2 hours by banca from Donsol. We did three days of diving at Manta Bowl – and saw whale sharks, manta rays, eagle rays, white tip sharks, schools of jacks, tuna and juvenile barracuda.  Visibility was reasonable at about 15 meters and water was on a cold side at C23. Currents at Manta Bowl are very strong and you need to use reef hooks to have a decent bottom time as current can push you off the shoal pretty quick. This was some of the best diving we have done in the Philippines and we definitely did not expect to see so many pelagics so near to the shore!

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Sunset view from Vitton hotel in Donsol, Philippines

There are two main options for diving Manta Bowl – one is to dive from Donsol another is to stay on Ticao island.  Since we originally planned to also snorkel with the whale sharks and had only limited time we decided to stay in Donsol at Vitton hotel.  It is on the shore with beautiful sunset views over the ocean, good food, basic clean and comfortable rooms, and within 50 meters of the whale shark interaction center which runs the whale shark snorkeling tours. It is also near to other resorts and the absolutely wonderful BARacuda restaurant. We had dinner there three nights in a row  and they serve some of the best seafood we had in the Philippines – very simple fresh fish and prawns with nice salads and other sides.

Getting back to banca after a dive at Manta Bowl

We dove with Giddy’s place dive shop and had excellent experience. Our instructor Jeremie was highly professional, the trips were perfectly organized and his guiding was brilliant as we got to see whale sharks on 7 out of 9 dives and had good bottom times of about 45 minutes each dive. We liked that they were trying to make sure that divers had matching level of experience as we saw that other operators took everyone to dive Manta Bowl – even open waters with ten or so dives – which is scary considering currents.

Manta ray, Manta Bowl, Philippines

Giddy’s resort is located in Donsol downtown. We were picked up every morning at 7:30am at our hotel and driven straight to the boat. Trip to Manta Bowl takes about 2 hours depending on the waves.  Lunch, coffee, water and towels were provided on the boat. We did all three dives on Manta Bowl each day. Other option includes going to San Miguel island which reportedly has very nice reef and corals.

Donsol town with Mayon volcano in the background

Donsol is a small town. There is one ATM but when we went to it on Sunday it already ran out of money so it is good to make sure to bring cash as most places (except Giddy’s) do not accept credit cards. Diving trips take pretty much all day coming back at about 5pm. We did not make it to the fireflies tour though heard good reports about it.  We also did not make it to waterfalls or to Mayon volcano.  We will need to come back for a longer stay next time!

Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park is a UNESCO World Heritage site covering 97 thousand hectares in the center of the Sulu sea in the heart of the coral triangle. Diving here is spectacular. Research shows that there are 600 fish species, 360 coral species, 11 shark species, 13 dolphin and whale species, and a nesting site for Hawksbill & Green sea turtles here.

Most dives are along walls covered with corals in very good condition. We went at the end of the season during the first week of June and saw lots of reef sharks, manta rays, eagle ray, lots of turtles, large bumphead parrot fish and napoleon wrasse, and even a hammerhead shark (albeit far – we were at about 40m and it was at abt 50) as well as variety of schooling fish.

We missed the whale shark and will be going back for sure. Tubbataha is only accessible by liveaboard and diving season is short between mid-March and mid-June. Visibility is superb about 30-50 meters. Only about a dozen boats operate diving trips and given the size of the reef you most likely will not have too many divers around you.

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Tubbataha reef is only accessible by liveaboard. The information on the park and liveaboards in the park is here. All liveaboards depart from Puerto Princessa in Palawan. There are regular flights to Puerto Princessa from Manila and Cebu. Most operators offer transition trip as the first and last trip of the season. Transition trip is a good opportunity to combine Apo Reef and Tubbataha reef in one trip. Transition trip in March departs from Batangas and ends in Puerto Princessa and the last trip of the season in June starts in Puerto Princessa and returns to Batangas. Puerto Princessa town has many hotels and expanding restaurant options. There is not much to do in Puerto Princessa itself.

Further ideas for combining Tubbataha trip include going to El Nido in the north of Palawan island – about 5 hour overland transfer or private plane transfer – or visiting Underground River and Honda Bay. If you do a transition trip in/out of Batangas then it can be combined with diving in Anilao or Puerto Galera. Tubbataha is definitely a world class destination and by far the best diving in the Philippines!

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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).

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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!

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