Trip Report Buceo Anilao and Atlantis Dumaguete

[dianna912]

TL;DR- Buceo Anilao- 10/10 absolute dream for the macro diver. Extremely photographer oriented. Five-star concierge dive service. We never touched any gear except our cameras. Rooms have a bit more local feel, but we loved that. Tons of thoughtful amenities for the frequent dives. Absolute best nudi hunter guides imaginable, but a little too hands on for my taste, to the point where I signalled for them to leave the nudi where it was lying instead of moving it for better positioning… Atlantis Dumaguete- 8/10 Luxury resort. Caters more to the casual diver. Lots of 1-2 dives a day divers, then sitting by the pool/spa/shopping, etc. Lots of huge groups of American divers. We were the only macro hunters/slow divers/photographers out of 60+ divers. Rooms are beautiful but not as thoughtfully appointed for the diver. Food was good at both.

A bit of backstory- last year, I sponsored the Coral Restoration Foundation “Raise the Reef” gala through my business, and while there, my husband and I bid on one week for one person at Atlantis Dumaguete. It was a specific week- their coral restoration week. We were actually the first bidder and two other people bid after us (silent auction) so we thought we were in the clear, but it turns out the bidders crossed off their bids, so… we had a trip to plan, lol.

I knew we wanted to visit Anilao, being it is the nudibranch capital of the world, and I’ve got to say, it lives up to its name. There were dives where the DM would serve up a buffet of nudibranchs lining up pieces of rubble so we could move right from one to another. The only thing I missed was hunting myself, but I would get plenty of that in Dauin… I haven’t finished uploading and IDing them all, but I suspect we found 100 different species in our 20 dives there. I have never had the pleasure of diving with a DM who could spot <5mm nudis like these guides, so it was an absolute pleasure. We booked a private guide for the two of us, and only had 3 other divers on our boat, so it was a dream setup. 2 guides, 5 divers with similar dive styles, and I was in heaven. Many of the dives were 75 minutes+ and if I was shooting something incredible (Doto ussi I had hunted all week!) they always let me finish. I tried to be considerate of the other divers, so it was never extremely extended past their exit, but it was so nice not to be rushed. The DM was even comfortable leaving me up top with a rare subject and coming back and getting me after 20 minutes.

A bit of a soapbox moment here: I mentioned above that the DMs were very handsy with the marine life, but I also understand it is an impossible task to please everyone, because there are a lot of photographers who will do ANYTHING to get “the shot” and expect the DMs to facilitate that. There are a couple of shots that I feel immensely guilty about because I know what was done to get them. (Squeezing a Xenia soft coral until the Phyllodesmium unborrowed and started to move around.) My recommendation would be to make it clear to the DM from the beginning that you are uncomfortable with touching the marine life just to get a shot. I know none of us are perfect, and I’ve definitely done my share of damage to hydroids because Dotos are my favorite little nudi, but I do think we should strive for minimal impact. One reason I felt particular sad about the Phyllodesmium: I got a great shot. Then we left to grab another diver I knew wanted to see it, and brought him to it. Well, it was nowhere to be seen. What we did see was heartbreaking: 3 cerata floating around. Understanding that nudibranchs are regenerative and can regrow their cerata, and knowing this guy was fist-sized I am praying it just ditched some cerata after a fish bit off more than it bargained for, but yeah, it’s a crappy feeling.

The resort: since I haven’t seen anyone mention this, the arrival came as quite a surprised. Instead of arriving by road, you actually shuttle 3 hours and then get on one of the boats. The night we arrived it was pouring torrentially, and we were still in our plane clothes, so it was quite the surprise. A fun adventure of a surprise, but maybe not for everyone. The rooms were nice, with a lovely local charm. A lot of the décor around the resort is hand made by staff, which really adds to the charm. It is a whole lot of stairs, but they do make that clear. Food was absolutely amazing. We loved hanging out in the pool between afternoon dives. Everyone was super accommodating and friendly, and we’ve rarely hit it off with other divers like we did here. Each meal, we’d eat together looking at photos, with the professional in our group (published multiple times/ served as a delegate for tourism, etc, etc) teaching me so much. It helped even more that he was shooting the same rig I was, TG-6 with a mini-flash and snoot. He had his son with him, so left the big rig at home. All in all, we were incredibly spoiled by Anilao, and that probably did influence our experience at Dumaguete a bit. After a week like that, we were set up for a little less amazingness.

To be continued...

 

[dianna912]

Because I can’t help but give some context to the start of week 2: our travel day was a bear. The travel itself was fine, but the stress from home and from Typhoon Nuro made for a very rough day. The morning of leaving Anilao, we got a message from our Florida roommate that the ceiling in the living room was profusely leaking water. We just finished an extensive remodel on this house 6 months ago, so this is the last thing we wanted to hear. The drainage line to the A/C was clogged (something that was supposed to have been serviced and taken care of at the end of our remodel) and overflowed the pan, and we had quite the mess. On top of that, Ian was barreling towards Florida, Nuro was barreling towards Anilao, so I was a big ball of anxiety and trying to get an a/c person out and decide just how in the hell we were going to deal with this Florida mess from the Philippines.

We arrived safely, blessedly, at Dumaguete, where they did my least favorite thing a resort does: bring you straight in and sit you down for dinner before you even get to go to your room. We knew we were in a different kind of resort when we asked about what to do with our dive gear, and they were like “um, bring it to the shop….” They did offer to send someone to our room to get it after we acted a bit surprised, but we didn’t want to start off asking for something out of the norm (there was plenty of time for that) so we went and got it ourselves. Again, we were just spoiled by Anilao, where they placed a crate outside our door, we filled it with gear and voila, we were all set up on the boat the next morning. Anyways, we got ourselves set up, and started diving. The first dive was highly stressful, for me at least. At the start of the dive, my husband found a pair of juvenile Jorunna farva (Sea Bunny nudibranch) which we had only seen one other time, on a night dive, in a terrible position for photos. Naturally, I was super excited to get a shot of this perfectly posed pair. Just as I was getting set up, another diver from the group came back and started signaling me to get back with the group. Not a DM, but another diver. I showed him the nudibranch, since I at first didn’t understand what he was doing. Then when I realized it I just gave him the “rare” hand signal and ignored him. When we got back on the boat he was ranting about how we were slowing the group down. Needless to say, this made for a very nasty start to the trip. We immediately inquired about getting a private guide but at $50 per dive, we didn’t think it was fair just because this guy wanted to sprint through the dive. I mentioned this to the dive shop manager and made a joke about the next hand signal I was going to use not being a friendly one and thankfully, they put another dive guide on our boat the next day. We did some “drive by” diving but also got a good chance to explore, especially as the week went on and the groups thinned out a bit. We got an underwater videographer grouped with us towards the end, and finally got a DM who really got excited about nudi hunting with us, and by the last couple of days, we had a great few dives.

You do have to be very vocal here about what you want if you don’t want to dive the same sites again and again and again. The coral project part of the trip was great, with one dive per day dedicated to the project. We felt bad because we didn’t participate in all of them, for a couple of reasons, but it was all optional, of course. We did clean the trees, and we planted coral. The first day, there was a tree-building dry land activity, and we knew we’d be the only divers on the boat if we went, so we took that opportunity to dive how we wanted. (Plus they had 20+ people building the trees, so we weren’t missed, since it was the only non-diver activity that the non-divers in the big group could participate in.) The last activity, data collection, we had gotten a nasty case of traveler’s diarrhea and while Imodium kept the worst of it at bay, when I dropped in, I was cramping so bad, I thought I would have to ascend, so I stayed shallow below the boat for 20 minutes, missing that activity.

The last day, the resort does a trip to swim with whale sharks. We skipped that. I’m going to get preachy here, so skip this paragraph if this is not your vibe: I was surprised that they actually support this excursion. The very eco-minded resorts in the area do not do this trip because it is a feeding, and multiple NGOs have raised red flags about how it is altering the behavior of the whale sharks, they are not migrating, not mating, and associate boats with food, so are getting injured very frequently. For a critically endangered species, this is a huge disappointment.

We spent the last few days of the trip with traveler’s diarrhea ebbing and flowing, and my stomach is still a wreck, but overall, I’d give Atlantis Dumaguete 8/10 stars and Buceo Anilao 10/10. Atlantis Dumaguete could be a great fit for the resort diver, though.

 

[drrich2]

Glad you had a good time. Sorry about the water damage to your home while you were away; that's a worry you didn't need on your trip.

The Philippines cover such a huge area and number of islands that I imagine it can be daunting for people considering a trip to pick an island. You described Anilao as the nudibranch capitol of the world by reputation, and it's big on macro (which you guys are fans of).

But what is the diving at Dumaguete distinctive for? Reefs, big fish, medium fish, some special category of animal, what? If divers not focused on macro (which from your report was the big majority there) were considering Dumaguete vs. other options (Puerto Galera seems very popular), what do you see as Dumaguete's selling points? I'm not focusing on the Atlantis resort specifically; there's one of those on Puerto Galera, too, IIRC.

 

[dianna912]

Glad you had a good time. Sorry about the water damage to your home while you were away; that's a worry you didn't need on your trip.

The Philippines cover such a huge area and number of islands that I imagine it can be daunting for people considering a trip to pick an island. You described Anilao as the nudibranch capitol of the world by reputation, and it's big on macro (which you guys are fans of).

But what is the diving at Dumaguete distinctive for? Reefs, big fish, medium fish, some special category of animal, what? If divers not focused on macro (which from your report was the big majority there) were considering Dumaguete vs. other options (Puerto Galera seems very popular), what do you see as Dumaguete's selling points? I'm not focusing on the Atlantis resort specifically; there's one of those on Puerto Galera, too, IIRC.

That's a good question. From what I could tell, Dumaguete is more known for their reefs. Apo Island was a very cool reef. Their macro life is also extremely rich, but macro divers are just not what Atlantis catered to, if that makes sense. We found tons of tiny, never before seen in Dumaguete nudibranchs, and I suspect that with the right guides, Dumaguete could be close to being just as rich as Anilao.

I honestly didn't see a huge difference between the two as far as marine life goes. We did not see signficantly more large fish in Dauin, at least that I noticed. I always joke that I wonder what all we miss with our heads in the rubble, but we'd ask the other dive group, and they didn't see anything more during their drive by diving.

We did see Mandarin fish mating, which was incredible! Our next trip to the Philippines will be all Anilao.

 

[Tippytoes12]

WoW, great report, many thanks for sharing. I had a repeat trip to Buceo in March, the first macro trip for two long years and it was so wonderful. Our guides were super careful about not touching things.

Such a shame that Atlantis service not always match the price ! We have had two great experiences with Liquid in Dumaguete with their excellent guides. I would not rate it quite on par with Anilao, but it was still very good.

It is interesting that the whalesharks are still in Oslob. We are big fans of Maldives liveaboards and in the whaleshark spotting area there are boats and divers and snorkellers all over the place. And dhonis from expensive resorts trying to drop their non swimming customers right in front or even on top of the poor creatures. Injuries to the whalesharks are very common there.

Hope your home repairs get sorted soon !

 

[dflaher]

Thanks for the great report!

 

[Centrals]

There are other places in the world also offering whaleshark feeding to attract tourist as well.
Divers do not have the divine right than snorkeler in this respect.

Southern Leyte(Sogod Bay) for something difference.

 

[hedonist222]

Nice
I was in Anilao last August

Who was your dive guide?

 

[DancinDiver]

Allow me to report an entirely different diving experience than the OP’s with Atlantis Dumaguete.

My spouse and I were there in August with a group from our local shop. The pace of our dives was slow and focused on critter hunting. Our dive guide (sometimes two on our small boat of 6 or 7 divers) was very much attuned to finding macro subjects, and nearly every dive was a muck dive. Five dives were available each day (and we did ask to repeat a particularly good site or two). The variety and number of nudis was spectacular — although we’ve never been to Anilao so we can’t compare. On only one dive did we cover a lot of territory, but that was at a site that required a drop far from the destination.

We missed the Apo Island day because we were sick (not food related), and we were very unhappy to learn that the whaleshark event was a feeding. We’re definitely not interested in contributing even more than we already do to disturbing and changing animal behavior.

Indeed our arrival experience was the same as the OP’s, with the group orientation dinner right away, and we carried our gear to the dive shop. The service was concierge level from then on, however. We carried only mask and fins on and off the boat. Small camera rigs we carried, but the crew would carry large rigs unless you specified otherwise.

The rooms were reasonably large and very nice, and the resort grounds were lush and gorgeous. The food was very good (although definitely not the best we’ve had at a dive resort), and the waitstaff was very nice and friendly, if noticeably inexperienced and sometimes inattentive.

 

[tridacna]

Allow me to report an entirely different diving experience than the OP’s with Atlantis Dumaguete.

My spouse and I were there in August with a group from our local shop. The pace of our dives was slow and focused on critter hunting. Our dive guide (sometimes two on our small boat of 6 or 7 divers) was very much attuned to finding macro subjects, and nearly every dive was a muck dive. Five dives were available each day (and we did ask to repeat a particularly good site or two). The variety and number of nudis was spectacular — although we’ve never been to Anilao so we can’t compare. On only one dive did we cover a lot of territory, but that was at a site that required a drop far from the destination.

We missed the Apo Island day because we were sick (not food related), and we were very unhappy to learn that the whaleshark event was a feeding. We’re definitely not interested in contributing even more than we already do to disturbing and changing animal behavior.

Indeed our arrival experience was the same as the OP’s, with the group orientation dinner right away, and we carried our gear to the dive shop. The service was concierge level from then on, however. We carried only mask and fins on and off the boat. Small camera rigs we carried, but the crew would carry large rigs unless you specified otherwise.

The rooms were reasonably large and very nice, and the resort grounds were lush and gorgeous. The food was very good (although definitely not the best we’ve had at a dive resort), and the waitstaff was very nice and friendly, if noticeably inexperienced and sometimes inattentive.

We had a similar experience at AD. But we did the Apo Island dive. Group loved it so much that we did it again. I’d go back in a heartbeat.