So this was about a month ago...took a while to find time to sit down and write this report. The wife and I completed our OW cert a month prior to our trip and were excited to go on our first holiday that included diving (as well as first holiday just the two of us in over 2 years). This was our first trip to the Philippines, and we had chosen our resort because it was a nice getaway and within our budget, way before deciding to add diving to our trip and in fact before even deciding to get certified. Even though it's probably common in the Philippines, I found it lucky and convenient that the resort we picked had its attached dive center that was well and highly reviewed.
Given it was our first "nice" holiday in a while, the resort we stayed at was the slightly expensive Busuanga Bay Lodge (I believe the most expensive on Busuanga Island). And the dive center is the aptly named Busuanga Bay Lodge Divers (BBL Divers). The resort is on the south western corner of the island, so it's quite a bit away from the famous Coron Island and the main town center, but is a nice place for those who want some quiet. Food is excellent, and there's decent enough variety to last about a week without repeats. Rooms and shared spaces are comfortable and carts will even come pick you up from your room to head to various parts of the resort, which is spread out over quite a bit of ground. Free rental of kayaks and snorkel equipment is available, though guests are advised against snorkeling around the hotel without wet suits as there are some box jellyfish around, which I was able to confirm one night myself looking down from a dock. Across the bay is another nice, slightly less expensive resort, Al Faro, that involves a lot of verticality (so not so great for elderly or handicapped crowd, but still and amazing place). Tons of stand alone dive shops are close by at other points in the bay as well. Lastly not too far away is a place called Concepion Point that offers much cheaper accommodations for backpackers and hotel goers that also has a dive shop and a dock, with shallow reefs within swimming distance (100m or so out?) that are great for snorkeling. But that's about it for land-based points of interest.
Now onto the review of the dive shop and experience!
So first off, let me start by saying the level of professionalism and friendliness is off the charts. I had a lot of concerns being that these were going to be the first dives outside of lesson settings, and in a totally new environment with the only assurances the reviews found off of trip advisor (I actually scoured these forums for some reviews or notes on BBL Divers and found only one mentioning the owners being a pair of Australians, but nothing on first or even second hand experience). But the exchange of emails, the level of detail and attentiveness to all my questions, and time for response added my sense of confidence in this dive shop. Ultimately I even ended up taking my AOW on my trip and now have my AOW certification! The manager, Quinn, is a great guy and even hung out with us after hours to chat about his various dive experiences and give us some recommendations on places to visit on our next trip to the Philippines. Our guide and my instructor, was a local named Jenny that grew up partially in the US, so communication was not a problem at all, and she made sure we had a great time. During the AOW dives, she gave lots of good pointers before and feedback after each dive and gave pointers on where I improved (and lacked) on subsequent dives, making sure that even though one part of the lesson was over, I kept improving and using those skills even during other lessons.
Of course, we had our share of fun dives as well (my wife only did fun dives, no AOW for her...yet). We ended up being a private group for all our dives as no other divers booked during our times and with the virtue of also doing my AOW, no fun dives were accepted during my lessons, but my wife was allowed to tag along and have fun (except for the deep dive)! Ended up doing tons of wreck dives and one reef dive. Visibility was about 16-20m most of the time, which I judged based on if or how far down from the mooring I would have to go before I could see the wrecks. It was mentioned that this was "okay" visibility, and that it can be much greater depending on the conditions. Quite a bit of current in the afternoon and at one point my wife needed assistance getting back to the boat as it was her first time swimming in such high current...even though it was only about 3-4m from the mooring line. Our guide (Jenny) was amazing in that regard by the way. Amount of wildlife was as amazing as we were promised! We saw a huge grouper, a few turtles, lionfish, some fish (I forgot the name of) building nests, schools of anchovies and jacks, a much more. My guide got super excited over a seahorse, as did every experienced diver I showed the video to. I didn't know they were that rare, so guess we were lucky!
The wrecks were amazing in and of itself. I had a hard time mentally mapping one of the wrecks, but (luckily?) the one I did my as part of my wreck diving lesson had a much easier layout and recognizable structure. There's tons of other dives doing swim through in the easier one and we did as well. I saw some more experienced divers penetrate into a more confined area of the ship, so many of these places have those for avid wreck divers. My favorite site was called the Okikawa Maru, an oil tanker that was bombed by the US navy during WWII and sunk after drifting and burning for a few hours. That tanker's interior is very dark and complicated so only simple swim throughs and external explorations were done by us. Did my naturalist lesson and another fun dive there as it's the wreck closest to our resort and my wife loved it there despite the strong current.
The only negative point I can think of is that there's only a few sites that are within 15 minutes boat ride away, so a longer stay to visit more sites will result in longer boat rides (beyond most sufficient SI requirements
). Coron Island and the more south easterly sites are a 30-45 minute powerboat ride away unless you happen to bring your own super powered boat (which one very rich family did!) that pretty much flies in the water. If dugongs are a must, it's at least 1.5 hours away from this resort and dive shop to the northern side of the island, but they do have day trip options with minimum 4 guests unless you wish to buy up the empty seats yourself. Price is cheap if you're used to western country prices like USA/EU, but BBL Divers is slightly more expensive (but still cheap!) than the other shops around given their location and attached resort. A fun dive with equipment rental will run you 2400 PHP or 2100 PHP without rentals. Packages are available, but we didn't buy any since we were not sure of how many dives we actually wanted to do, especially the wife, who was slightly more interested in the spa and relaxing .
Hope you guys enjoyed my review, this is my first ever on this site since joining! I'm not 100% sure on the rules/etiquette regarding linking the dive center website on reviews and with the names I've given they're a simple google search away, but if anyone's interested in them just PM me or let me know if it's okay to post them and I will update the review with their info!
Given it was our first "nice" holiday in a while, the resort we stayed at was the slightly expensive Busuanga Bay Lodge (I believe the most expensive on Busuanga Island). And the dive center is the aptly named Busuanga Bay Lodge Divers (BBL Divers). The resort is on the south western corner of the island, so it's quite a bit away from the famous Coron Island and the main town center, but is a nice place for those who want some quiet. Food is excellent, and there's decent enough variety to last about a week without repeats. Rooms and shared spaces are comfortable and carts will even come pick you up from your room to head to various parts of the resort, which is spread out over quite a bit of ground. Free rental of kayaks and snorkel equipment is available, though guests are advised against snorkeling around the hotel without wet suits as there are some box jellyfish around, which I was able to confirm one night myself looking down from a dock. Across the bay is another nice, slightly less expensive resort, Al Faro, that involves a lot of verticality (so not so great for elderly or handicapped crowd, but still and amazing place). Tons of stand alone dive shops are close by at other points in the bay as well. Lastly not too far away is a place called Concepion Point that offers much cheaper accommodations for backpackers and hotel goers that also has a dive shop and a dock, with shallow reefs within swimming distance (100m or so out?) that are great for snorkeling. But that's about it for land-based points of interest.
Now onto the review of the dive shop and experience!
So first off, let me start by saying the level of professionalism and friendliness is off the charts. I had a lot of concerns being that these were going to be the first dives outside of lesson settings, and in a totally new environment with the only assurances the reviews found off of trip advisor (I actually scoured these forums for some reviews or notes on BBL Divers and found only one mentioning the owners being a pair of Australians, but nothing on first or even second hand experience). But the exchange of emails, the level of detail and attentiveness to all my questions, and time for response added my sense of confidence in this dive shop. Ultimately I even ended up taking my AOW on my trip and now have my AOW certification! The manager, Quinn, is a great guy and even hung out with us after hours to chat about his various dive experiences and give us some recommendations on places to visit on our next trip to the Philippines. Our guide and my instructor, was a local named Jenny that grew up partially in the US, so communication was not a problem at all, and she made sure we had a great time. During the AOW dives, she gave lots of good pointers before and feedback after each dive and gave pointers on where I improved (and lacked) on subsequent dives, making sure that even though one part of the lesson was over, I kept improving and using those skills even during other lessons.
Of course, we had our share of fun dives as well (my wife only did fun dives, no AOW for her...yet). We ended up being a private group for all our dives as no other divers booked during our times and with the virtue of also doing my AOW, no fun dives were accepted during my lessons, but my wife was allowed to tag along and have fun (except for the deep dive)! Ended up doing tons of wreck dives and one reef dive. Visibility was about 16-20m most of the time, which I judged based on if or how far down from the mooring I would have to go before I could see the wrecks. It was mentioned that this was "okay" visibility, and that it can be much greater depending on the conditions. Quite a bit of current in the afternoon and at one point my wife needed assistance getting back to the boat as it was her first time swimming in such high current...even though it was only about 3-4m from the mooring line. Our guide (Jenny) was amazing in that regard by the way. Amount of wildlife was as amazing as we were promised! We saw a huge grouper, a few turtles, lionfish, some fish (I forgot the name of) building nests, schools of anchovies and jacks, a much more. My guide got super excited over a seahorse, as did every experienced diver I showed the video to. I didn't know they were that rare, so guess we were lucky!
The wrecks were amazing in and of itself. I had a hard time mentally mapping one of the wrecks, but (luckily?) the one I did my as part of my wreck diving lesson had a much easier layout and recognizable structure. There's tons of other dives doing swim through in the easier one and we did as well. I saw some more experienced divers penetrate into a more confined area of the ship, so many of these places have those for avid wreck divers. My favorite site was called the Okikawa Maru, an oil tanker that was bombed by the US navy during WWII and sunk after drifting and burning for a few hours. That tanker's interior is very dark and complicated so only simple swim throughs and external explorations were done by us. Did my naturalist lesson and another fun dive there as it's the wreck closest to our resort and my wife loved it there despite the strong current.
The only negative point I can think of is that there's only a few sites that are within 15 minutes boat ride away, so a longer stay to visit more sites will result in longer boat rides (beyond most sufficient SI requirements
). Coron Island and the more south easterly sites are a 30-45 minute powerboat ride away unless you happen to bring your own super powered boat (which one very rich family did!) that pretty much flies in the water. If dugongs are a must, it's at least 1.5 hours away from this resort and dive shop to the northern side of the island, but they do have day trip options with minimum 4 guests unless you wish to buy up the empty seats yourself. Price is cheap if you're used to western country prices like USA/EU, but BBL Divers is slightly more expensive (but still cheap!) than the other shops around given their location and attached resort. A fun dive with equipment rental will run you 2400 PHP or 2100 PHP without rentals. Packages are available, but we didn't buy any since we were not sure of how many dives we actually wanted to do, especially the wife, who was slightly more interested in the spa and relaxing .Hope you guys enjoyed my review, this is my first ever on this site since joining! I'm not 100% sure on the rules/etiquette regarding linking the dive center website on reviews and with the names I've given they're a simple google search away, but if anyone's interested in them just PM me or let me know if it's okay to post them and I will update the review with their info!
