cozcharlie
Contributor
I think I posted a report about a year ago , so going to keep this report relatively brief.
I and a friend of mine who is also into dive photography (he is a much better shooter than I am) met up at Crystal Blue Resort for two weeks in May 2025. We came a few days early and then stayed for a roughly 10 day photo workshop “Critterhunt “.
We had both happened to be there at the same time in 2024 and decided to coordinate a trip together this year. There are a few different photography-oriented events during the year and the “Critterhunt “ event worked with our schedule. It wasn’t absolutely necessary we visited during a workshop but it was a nice bonus. Mike Bartick at Crystal Blue is a world- class underwater photographer and there are numerous photo workshops at the resort during the year (sometimes standalone events run by the resort l, but also events run by people/companies in the dive travel/photography industry.
The hotel itself is nice but isn’t really aiming for “luxury” market . They have the things most divers/photographers value. Think well-built, clean rooms with good AC and good WiFi. It also has an excellent and attentive staff as well as good food. The hotel just isn’t targeting the sit in a the lounge chair while being served piña coladas set . They do offer massages at the resort by appointment. Both last year and this year the massages were quite good. A chiropractor friend who has stayed at the resort independently of me also strongly recommends the massages.
The food is all served buffet/style. It is probably the best all around food I have had at a land-based resort in Asia. Mike used to be in the food/catering industry in the US and I believe he kind of sets the tone for the food at the resort (he isn’t involved with cooking as far as I know , but I don’t think the chefs could get away with serving lousy food when management used to be involved in the food business ). They usually had around 6 or 7 dishes in the buffet and I liked about 5-6 of them (and I am a relatively picky eater ) . At lunch / dinner , there was usually a soup, a pasta , a vegetable dish and 3 proteins (some combo of fish/shrimp/beef/pork/chicken ), a salad, some fruit and a couple of dessert options .
The photo workshop had photographers of all levels, but I would recommend that you be past absolute beginner in order to get the most of it (an Alex Mustard book and/or a few YouTube videos will get you past absolute beginner ). Some people showed up with very little knowledge of their camera (may rented one ) and no laptop with Lightroom. If you go to this photo course (or any other underwater photo course ) I would strongly recommend you bring a laptop with Lightroom Classic. Trying to edit photos in your iPad (or even just your phone ) is not the most efficient way of doing things. Some people only had iPads (some without Lightroom ) and while they all got a lot out of the course I think they almost all said it would have been easier for them had they brought a laptop with Lightroom. The beginners improved a lot—just probably would struggled less (especially at beginning) with a laptop and Lightroom . A few people had recently bought MacBook Pros and said they regretted leaving them at home. All of this said , Mike, Bruce and Walter all enjoy teaching others about underwater photography (and video for Walter ). I am fairly certain everyone learned a lot , with the least experienced photographers learning the most as you might expect .
As you would expect in Anilao, all of the day dives were macro dives. There were a couple of reefs where you could have made wide-angle work but that wasn’t the point . I also did a couple of blackwater dives. Mike pioneered blackwater dives in the Anilao area. He even wrote an ebook on Blackwater that is available somewhere . I actually have it , but don’t remember how and when I bought it . The Blackwater in May was good but not great. I think it is likely better in winter. While diving everywhere varies day to day and week to week, the Blackwater was better last March than this May and I got the impression that some general seasonality is to be expected .
In summary , Crystal Blue Resort is a well run dive/photography resort that I have visited before and I will almost certainly visit again.
My photos are posted on smugmug at the link below. All photos are fully viewable/downloadable for free. Ignore the buy now button (or something to that effect ). That is a physical printing service that obviously costs money. While you are welcome to use it, It is not affiliated with me and I don’t get a royalty/commission so this isn’t some effort to sell photos. Please note this is a gallery created for my own memories than a true “highlight “ photos gallery. There is some repetition and a few photos that aren’t that great but I chose to keep for whatever reason.
[Anilao 2025 - CozCharlie]
EDIT: I should have mentioned that all the guides were great. You usually get assigned a guide at the beginning of your stay and they will stick with you through your trip. For our own logistical reasons , we had a couple of different guides that were all excellent. While I generally don’t really like higher volume operations , for macro there are definite advantages to using an op that sends out several boats a day. The divemasters talk to each other. While each one is great at finding things , the guests get better dives if the DMs know where to look for things (for example if another divemaster told them they saw a hairy frog fish at secret bay dive site at 57 feet by the L-shaped coral head). While DMs everywhere talk, it does tend to be more important at the macro sites where the sea life is unlikely to like miles between dives like some pelagic creatures are prone to do.
I and a friend of mine who is also into dive photography (he is a much better shooter than I am) met up at Crystal Blue Resort for two weeks in May 2025. We came a few days early and then stayed for a roughly 10 day photo workshop “Critterhunt “.
We had both happened to be there at the same time in 2024 and decided to coordinate a trip together this year. There are a few different photography-oriented events during the year and the “Critterhunt “ event worked with our schedule. It wasn’t absolutely necessary we visited during a workshop but it was a nice bonus. Mike Bartick at Crystal Blue is a world- class underwater photographer and there are numerous photo workshops at the resort during the year (sometimes standalone events run by the resort l, but also events run by people/companies in the dive travel/photography industry.
The hotel itself is nice but isn’t really aiming for “luxury” market . They have the things most divers/photographers value. Think well-built, clean rooms with good AC and good WiFi. It also has an excellent and attentive staff as well as good food. The hotel just isn’t targeting the sit in a the lounge chair while being served piña coladas set . They do offer massages at the resort by appointment. Both last year and this year the massages were quite good. A chiropractor friend who has stayed at the resort independently of me also strongly recommends the massages.
The food is all served buffet/style. It is probably the best all around food I have had at a land-based resort in Asia. Mike used to be in the food/catering industry in the US and I believe he kind of sets the tone for the food at the resort (he isn’t involved with cooking as far as I know , but I don’t think the chefs could get away with serving lousy food when management used to be involved in the food business ). They usually had around 6 or 7 dishes in the buffet and I liked about 5-6 of them (and I am a relatively picky eater ) . At lunch / dinner , there was usually a soup, a pasta , a vegetable dish and 3 proteins (some combo of fish/shrimp/beef/pork/chicken ), a salad, some fruit and a couple of dessert options .
The photo workshop had photographers of all levels, but I would recommend that you be past absolute beginner in order to get the most of it (an Alex Mustard book and/or a few YouTube videos will get you past absolute beginner ). Some people showed up with very little knowledge of their camera (may rented one ) and no laptop with Lightroom. If you go to this photo course (or any other underwater photo course ) I would strongly recommend you bring a laptop with Lightroom Classic. Trying to edit photos in your iPad (or even just your phone ) is not the most efficient way of doing things. Some people only had iPads (some without Lightroom ) and while they all got a lot out of the course I think they almost all said it would have been easier for them had they brought a laptop with Lightroom. The beginners improved a lot—just probably would struggled less (especially at beginning) with a laptop and Lightroom . A few people had recently bought MacBook Pros and said they regretted leaving them at home. All of this said , Mike, Bruce and Walter all enjoy teaching others about underwater photography (and video for Walter ). I am fairly certain everyone learned a lot , with the least experienced photographers learning the most as you might expect .
As you would expect in Anilao, all of the day dives were macro dives. There were a couple of reefs where you could have made wide-angle work but that wasn’t the point . I also did a couple of blackwater dives. Mike pioneered blackwater dives in the Anilao area. He even wrote an ebook on Blackwater that is available somewhere . I actually have it , but don’t remember how and when I bought it . The Blackwater in May was good but not great. I think it is likely better in winter. While diving everywhere varies day to day and week to week, the Blackwater was better last March than this May and I got the impression that some general seasonality is to be expected .
In summary , Crystal Blue Resort is a well run dive/photography resort that I have visited before and I will almost certainly visit again.
My photos are posted on smugmug at the link below. All photos are fully viewable/downloadable for free. Ignore the buy now button (or something to that effect ). That is a physical printing service that obviously costs money. While you are welcome to use it, It is not affiliated with me and I don’t get a royalty/commission so this isn’t some effort to sell photos. Please note this is a gallery created for my own memories than a true “highlight “ photos gallery. There is some repetition and a few photos that aren’t that great but I chose to keep for whatever reason.
[Anilao 2025 - CozCharlie]
EDIT: I should have mentioned that all the guides were great. You usually get assigned a guide at the beginning of your stay and they will stick with you through your trip. For our own logistical reasons , we had a couple of different guides that were all excellent. While I generally don’t really like higher volume operations , for macro there are definite advantages to using an op that sends out several boats a day. The divemasters talk to each other. While each one is great at finding things , the guests get better dives if the DMs know where to look for things (for example if another divemaster told them they saw a hairy frog fish at secret bay dive site at 57 feet by the L-shaped coral head). While DMs everywhere talk, it does tend to be more important at the macro sites where the sea life is unlikely to like miles between dives like some pelagic creatures are prone to do.
