Help Me Pick a New Philippine Destination

[Skewbaa]

Planning on going to the Philippines this year and need a new place to go. Been to the following and want to try something new:

Puerto Galera (3 out of 5 stars; dives a bit monotonous after awhile; topside fun; crowded; viz so so)
Alona (4 out of 5; topside fun; crowded; viz so so)
Coron (4 out of five; wrecks fun but had enough after two weeks; dives short; topside was good; viz was bad)
Leyte (3 out of 5; mellow; dives can get monotonous; topside slow; viz okay)
Moalboal (3 out of 5; crowded; other than Pescador I., dives somewhat boring; topside fun; viz so so)
Apo (Dumaguete) (3 out of 5; Crowded)

Hope that gives you some kind of idea of what I like. The following are possible candidates:

Malapascua
Bantayan
Anilao
El Nido
Pandan Island

Thanks for any input.

 

[DevonDiver]

If you like wrecks... then Subic Bay should defnitely be on your to-do list. It doesn't have to be the main emphasis of your trip, because it is easily reached from Manila (bus 3 hours) and can be added as a side-tour at the beginning or end of your vacation.

There are over 12 wrecks in Subic Bay, mostly military and some are WWII or earlier. There are a wide variety of hotels, motels, B&Bs and resorts that cater for divers...along with some decent top-side entertainments depending on your tastes.

The viz varies depending on the site. Most people dive the USS New York (armored cruiser) and experience bad viz (2-10m) on that site. Other sites have much better viz (10-30m).

The dive sites are never crowded and the pace is very relaxed.

Here is my article about the diving: Wreck Dive Subic Bay

If you need any more details, feel free to drop me a pm.

 

[Nata]

Malapascua - diving not bad, but 5 years ago it was much better
Bantayan - never been
Anilao - excellent diving (macro and wide angle, a lot of nice dive cites - can reccomend Anilao Batangas, scuba diving, dive shop and dive resort in Philippines - all the guides super !)
El Nido - diving so-so, but very nice views around
Pandan Island - diving not really good where we dive

Can propose to you also some places withy good diving:
Dumagete (Negros) - a lot of macro + Apo Island coral gardens
Sipalay (Negros) - a lot of macro on the pier and house reefs (close to Easy diving resort)
Samal (Davao)

 

[eagerbeaver]

You didn't rate the diving in Alona... that might be the most similar to here in Malapascua - except its better here.

I'm not sure what Nata's 'better 5 yrs ago' is based on, but personally after 8 yrs in the PI i thik its some of the best diving you can find. Yesterday on my newly created house reef we found 2 seahorse, 2 snake eels, a sea moth, and a sea snake. Not bad for what is basically a patch of sand.

Oh and did anyone mention that there's loads of sharks and rays?

Not sure that Bantayan has any diving setup, and if there is it will be low key. Pandan is supposed ot be pretty good with the chance to go to Apo Reef which you might enjoy a lot - not oft visited and supposed to to be great.

Sipalay certainly is worth a look as Nata said although topside is dull dull dull and its a hell of a long way from nowhere.

 

[Nata]

You didn't rate the diving in Alona... that might be the most similar to here in Malapascua - except its better here.

Oh and did anyone mention that there's loads of sharks and rays?

Sipalay certainly is worth a look as Nata said although topside is dull dull dull and its a hell of a long way from nowhere.

Alona is much better than Malapascua now... Alona I mean also Baliscasag, Cabilao and Pamilican...
I'm not expectes any sharks or rays - I'm addicted to macro and nice corals
On Malapascua both are not so good as on dive-sites that you can reach from Panglao.

Sipalay - it's depend of time of the year and dive-guide.

I hope that in 2-3 weeks I will find time and will do some photo reports from all of those distenations - you will have the chance to compare that just by photos

 

[eagerbeaver]

Alona is much better than Malapascua now... Alona I mean also Baliscasag, Cabilao and Pamilican...
I'm not expectes any sharks or rays - I'm addicted to macro and nice corals
On Malapascua both are not so good as on dive-sites that you can reach from Panglao.

Sipalay - it's depend of time of the year and dive-guide.

I hope that in 2-3 weeks I will find time and will do some photo reports from all of those distenations - you will have the chance to compare that just by photos

Obviously this is subjective and everyone has their opinion...for me Malapascua has outstanding macro which is not looked at by many of the local guides as they liek to stick to their usual route on every dive site, and miss out on some of the great critters.

But Alona is certainly good!

 

[Skewbaa]

Thanks for the replies so far. Sipalay has caught my attention. Any more info on this place? Places to stay and dive recommendations?

 

[eagerbeaver]

I think Easy Divers and Artistic Diving are the 2 main operators in Sipalay...

 

[guamrider]

Hi, I've got 5 videos we did for tv show on diving Sipalay last year. Also have other Philippine destinations as well here: Philippines on Vimeo. They might help you. decide.

 

[mofongo_max]

So far I've been to PG, Bohol (mostly Balicasag) and Anilao. By far, my favorite destination for the diving alone was Anilao.

Convenient to reach from Manila and has a great variety of sites 5-20ish minutes from your resort. Nice macro/muck, the jacks at Twin Rocks, great coral and squadrons of reef fish around Sombrero Island, plenty of octos, frogfish, stonefish, scorpionfish, nudis, cuttlefish, etc.

Top side, nice and quiet small town. No girlie bars and I wasn't pestered to rent a motorbike or buy a bootleg pair or sunglasses everytime I walked down the street. When I was there in December it got kind of busy at the resort during the weekend, though my gf and I still had a banca and guide to ourselves every dive. Total ghost town during the week. Food options were pretty limited to the resort or walking down the street to a sari-sari.

I recently did a bunch of research for my next PI trip (45 days and counting, yea!) and decided on a LOB to Tubbataha with a short side trip to Anilao again.