Having visited Anilao and Puerto Galera several times in the past, as well as a short trip to Cebu / Negros Oriental late in 2019, I was looking for something new. I had discussed Romblon with my regular SE Asian dive buddy @outofofficebrb and we both agreed that it met our criteria for a new macro destination, specifically to see and photograph two different species of nudibranchs, Melibe colemani and Cyerce nigra.
GETTING THERE
Romblon is situated south east of Luzon, and about as central to the Philippines as you can get. However, our main concern was basically travel time considering it was not close to a major airport. The nearest airport is on another island, Tablas, but requires further transport by boat to Romblon, and the flights did not seem reliable enough to look at this option.
At the time of booking the trip, November 2024, we booked the last two rooms at 3P Dive Resort, and flights to Tablas had been discontinued due to issues with the airline servicing this area.
In the end, we chose the only other route by ferry operated by a company called Starlite from Batangas, which takes approximately nine to ten hours depending on the weather to reach Romblon. We also booked a three berth VIP cabin to accommodate myself, @outofofficebrb and @WetPup who had also joined us, giving us some comfort for the journey to and from Batangas, as well as our own private bathroom.
@outofofficebrb and I had flown into Manila after ADEX in Singapore on the Sunday night, and we stayed in Manila overnight meeting up with @WetPup on Monday afternoon at Batangas as she had been diving at Anilao prior to this part of the trip.
We did have a bit of anxiety in Manila as our driver was over an hour late picking us up at our hotel, but we did arrive at Batangas by 3pm. We already had ferry tickets, but there’s a few other payments required such as port fees, porter fees etc., and all bags are x-rayed prior to being loaded on the ferry too.
We bought some snacks at the port terminal for the trip as well as other stuff for our surface intervals. As it was, our VIP room also came with a meal on the ferry, so that wasn’t too bad. On the return trip, we had an evening meal and breakfast.
The ferry left Batangas at 4pm and arrived at Romblon around 2am the following morning. From there it headed off to another destination, so there were disembarking passengers as well as embarking passengers, plus it was dark, and making sure our bags from the baggage area were retrieved without leaving one behind was slightly chaotic as they were buried under other bags.
A tip here would be to have some bright coloured tags on your bags for easy identification and retrieval by the porters.
Once we were off the boat and all bags accounted for, we were met by 3P’s transport guy Oscar, who organized our travel to the resort along with five other passengers from Thailand, on trikes, basically a small motorcycle with sidecar that is common in Filipino provinces. The three of us with dive and camera gear were on two trikes.
The journey to 3P took about 20 minutes in the dark, and I had a rear facing seat holding on to my case containing my camera housing and strobes, gripping part of the trike structure to ensure I was not going to fall off. When we arrived at 3P I was exhausted.
All three of us crashed out in one room until the following morning when we had breakfast, assembled camera housings etc., as well as prepare our dive gear to be taken to the dive boat / bangka.
The following morning during breakfast, we were greeted by David, who was in charge of the accommodation and kitchen. He inquired about any food allergies, likes and dislikes etc., to enable his staff to manage our meals during our 10-day stay.
To his and the kitchen staff’s credit during the whole stay, all three of us agreed that the food here was the best we have experienced at a Filipino Dive Resort.
However, what would have been nice would have been some snacks on the boat for the morning surface interval, only water was supplied. Fortunately, we had brought some snacks with us for this purpose but we soon used them up after sharing with the boat crew and dive guides.
When we came back from the second dive each day, a three-course lunch was devoured without thinking about it, the food was fabulous, and after two long dives we were hungry.
Dinner in the evening was also a three-course meal, generally at 7pm but delayed whenever anyone of us was doing a night dive until 8pm.
The meals were served at your allocated table. Only breakfast was buffet style, and you could order eggs in whatever style you desired.
The rooms were reasonable with working space for two cameras and an extension cord for charging batteries. Both @outofofficebrb and I had brought our own though to accommodate our various chargers. There is no dedicated camera room such as found in certain resorts in Anilao.
One point I need to make was the constant issue of “no water” for showering in the room as well as at the gear rinsing area. The shower at the gear rinse area barely gave out any water, and even in the room we had to deal with no water at least three times a day during our whole stay there.
GETTING THERE
Romblon is situated south east of Luzon, and about as central to the Philippines as you can get. However, our main concern was basically travel time considering it was not close to a major airport. The nearest airport is on another island, Tablas, but requires further transport by boat to Romblon, and the flights did not seem reliable enough to look at this option.
At the time of booking the trip, November 2024, we booked the last two rooms at 3P Dive Resort, and flights to Tablas had been discontinued due to issues with the airline servicing this area.
In the end, we chose the only other route by ferry operated by a company called Starlite from Batangas, which takes approximately nine to ten hours depending on the weather to reach Romblon. We also booked a three berth VIP cabin to accommodate myself, @outofofficebrb and @WetPup who had also joined us, giving us some comfort for the journey to and from Batangas, as well as our own private bathroom.
@outofofficebrb and I had flown into Manila after ADEX in Singapore on the Sunday night, and we stayed in Manila overnight meeting up with @WetPup on Monday afternoon at Batangas as she had been diving at Anilao prior to this part of the trip.
We did have a bit of anxiety in Manila as our driver was over an hour late picking us up at our hotel, but we did arrive at Batangas by 3pm. We already had ferry tickets, but there’s a few other payments required such as port fees, porter fees etc., and all bags are x-rayed prior to being loaded on the ferry too.
We bought some snacks at the port terminal for the trip as well as other stuff for our surface intervals. As it was, our VIP room also came with a meal on the ferry, so that wasn’t too bad. On the return trip, we had an evening meal and breakfast.
The ferry left Batangas at 4pm and arrived at Romblon around 2am the following morning. From there it headed off to another destination, so there were disembarking passengers as well as embarking passengers, plus it was dark, and making sure our bags from the baggage area were retrieved without leaving one behind was slightly chaotic as they were buried under other bags.
A tip here would be to have some bright coloured tags on your bags for easy identification and retrieval by the porters.
Once we were off the boat and all bags accounted for, we were met by 3P’s transport guy Oscar, who organized our travel to the resort along with five other passengers from Thailand, on trikes, basically a small motorcycle with sidecar that is common in Filipino provinces. The three of us with dive and camera gear were on two trikes.
The journey to 3P took about 20 minutes in the dark, and I had a rear facing seat holding on to my case containing my camera housing and strobes, gripping part of the trike structure to ensure I was not going to fall off. When we arrived at 3P I was exhausted.
All three of us crashed out in one room until the following morning when we had breakfast, assembled camera housings etc., as well as prepare our dive gear to be taken to the dive boat / bangka.
The following morning during breakfast, we were greeted by David, who was in charge of the accommodation and kitchen. He inquired about any food allergies, likes and dislikes etc., to enable his staff to manage our meals during our 10-day stay.
To his and the kitchen staff’s credit during the whole stay, all three of us agreed that the food here was the best we have experienced at a Filipino Dive Resort.
However, what would have been nice would have been some snacks on the boat for the morning surface interval, only water was supplied. Fortunately, we had brought some snacks with us for this purpose but we soon used them up after sharing with the boat crew and dive guides.
When we came back from the second dive each day, a three-course lunch was devoured without thinking about it, the food was fabulous, and after two long dives we were hungry.
Dinner in the evening was also a three-course meal, generally at 7pm but delayed whenever anyone of us was doing a night dive until 8pm.
The meals were served at your allocated table. Only breakfast was buffet style, and you could order eggs in whatever style you desired.
The rooms were reasonable with working space for two cameras and an extension cord for charging batteries. Both @outofofficebrb and I had brought our own though to accommodate our various chargers. There is no dedicated camera room such as found in certain resorts in Anilao.
One point I need to make was the constant issue of “no water” for showering in the room as well as at the gear rinsing area. The shower at the gear rinse area barely gave out any water, and even in the room we had to deal with no water at least three times a day during our whole stay there.
