Philippines

My wife and I decided at last on our vacation to this year and we are going to Palau for a live aboard on the Big Blue Explorer (Eric, to your report was a big part of it)

Also we are planning 3-4 weeks in the Philippines, most of it on land but we want to dive there also for few days from shore.

Any recommendations where to go (the problem is not where to dive but where not to, since there are so many places there) we are looking especially for pelagic and less for reef and reefs creatures.

Also recommendations on the BBE if there are will be welcome.

Thank's Arnon

Arnon,

Check www.tubbataha.com for info on the Philippines' various (and terrific) dive sites.

Regards,

Norman/Swordfish

Thank's Norman, It’s a good site with good information.

I also want to ear from people (especially photographers ) that dove there.

Arnon

I dove Tubbataha last May but it's only accessible via a live-aboard which is only available during the summer months of April and May. You can see my pictures at http://www.pbase.com/naquino/tubbataha. Most of the photos are macro since I didn't yet have a strobe then.

I also have pictures from Anilao, Batangas, the nearest dive site from Manila. Check http://www.pbase.com/naquino2/anilao_0803

Just last Saturday, I dove with friends in Puerto Galera in Mindoro province. It was a high-intensity dive with strong current trying to pull you down. You must have read about the Hole in the Wall site and the Canyons. I brought my camera down and got to shoot only four or five pictures because of the current. =B)

If you're into wrecks, you can go to Coron in Palawan province. We have about 10-12 World War II Japanese wrecks there. There's also Barracuda Lake, whose underwater topography (and the thermoclines too) will surely amaze you.

Anyway, the Philppines has a lot to offer as far as diving is concerned. And the rates are pretty competitive too. You won't regret coming here. =B)

Have fun.

Regards,

Norman/Swordfish

Just a quick response to some of the information posted in this thread above.

1) Tubataha. As Swordfish says, only accessible for about six weeks around May, and only by liveaboard. There are actually several different reefs that are dived on these trips (including Maender, Jessie Beazlie). Tubbataha is the main attraction, a huge atoll (several miles) rising straight up from the bottom of the Sulu Sea. Some dynamite damage at the top, but great walls. It's not really a macro site, as far as I'm concerned. Lots of sharks - mostly whitetips. We also saw a couple of big schools of sailfin snappers, which are very pretty. Clouds of pyramid butterflyfish. Like most oceanic seamounts and atolls, you don't get the biodiversity that you would closer to a landmass, but it's great diving, and a very interesting place to go.

2) Puerto Galera. The Canyons is the "signature" dive at Puerto Galera, and it's definitely a strong current drift under most conditions, as are some of the other dives in the same area. But currents vary according to tide and moon - I've done the Canyons as a wide-angle dive, and also as a macro dive, numerous times. It can be tricky handling a wide-angle rig with long strobe arms when the currents are strong.

But more importantly, the Canyons and Hole-in-the-wall aren't the only dives ta Puerto Galera. There are many others which are very different, including several superb macro sites. Sabang Bay and Little Laguna Bay are protected, and have lots of great stuff to see and shoot. I've seen lots of frogfish, pygmy seahourses (only 100 m. from the Point Bar jetty, but I'm not sure that sea fan is still there). There are wrecks sunk in Sabang Bay by the local dive operators that have magnets for sea life, including great macro subjects. Great for night dives too.

Puerto Galera is the only place I've ever shot (or seen) a Harlequin shrimp. (At the sunken dry dock, near the end of Little La Laguna.) Spectacular nudibranchs at many sites (overlapping some of the species found at Anilao, directly across the Verde Strait from Puerto Gallera). There's a white black coral forest with schools of shrimpfish on a seamount near the Galleon channel, a deep dive, but very nice. And if you're qualified for technical diving (or interested in becoming one), there are lots of really deep dives that I've never done, and a very active technical diving scene.

I'm leaving out Verde Island, just across the Channel, which is not dived everyday but can be worked into any visit, which is spectacular for both macro or wide-angle. Two main dives there, the pinnacle and the "Little Canyons", truly great.

There are several good operators in Puerto Galera, and a lot of crummy ones as well. I used to dive there a lot when I lived in HK, and always dived with Asia Divers, who I like, but there are others who are said to be good as well. TechAsia is Asia Divers' technical diving subsidiary or branch, something like that.

Robert Delfs

Further to above, if you're looking more for pelagics and not for macro/reef stuff, you might consider Malapascua, which has acquired some fame in the past few years for reliable sitings of thresher sharks. Apparently it's almost guaranteed, but the visibility usually isn't very good.

Robert Delfs