Safest Dive Operators in Phillippines?

[afdgf]

I wanted to ask the usual question about where to dive in the Phillippines, but I wanted to ask it in a different way. Instead of asking about the best diving, I wanted to know what you consider to be the safest diving/dive operations in the Phillippines. Could be either land-based or liveaboard. We are considering going in June of next year so have some time to plan. Once we decide on the dive operator, then we can plan the rest around that. We will be flying into Manilla from Taipei. We are AOW certified and at that time should have about 150 dives. My wife is not crazy about sharks, but will tolerate them. She particularly likes seahorses. Thanks for tolerating yet another "where to dive" question.

 

[diver 85]

When we went to Dumaguete almost 2 years ago, we stayed @ Pura Vida Resort & used their dive shop----great time & dives were had by all........Same as the next island, we boated(4 hours) to Cebu & stayed @ Turtle Bay Resort with the same results with their dive shop--also did the whaleshark dive from there(~2 hour car ride) @ Oslob..6 WSs were there that day & all had a great time----again.......

BTW, there were 20 from Louisiana on the trip(mostly all were divers) & split up into 2 groups, each going a day apart, to do the WS/Oslob little trip........Hope you have a great trip/time, was well worth the time & effort it took us to 'do the Philippines'..Also remember,(I think) there are over 7100 islands so choosing 'down to 2' was somewhat hard but we all felt like we made the right choice(s)...


EDIT....:hope your wife enjoys diving with sea snakes--------there were PLENTY(think we saw about 25 total)......here's one the DM & I 'captured' on video,( everyone else had ended the dive a little earlier--click below link) heading back to the pier @ Turtle Bay Resort after making the dusk/sunset house mandarinfish dive---it was FANTASTIC......
https://www.flickr.com/photos/80825593@N08/8127803427/in/album-72157631848202460/

Other PI pics & videos can be found @ my Flickr site(click below link)---all have PI in their album names... Think there are about 9 total, just scroll about 2/3s the way down here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/80825593@N08/albums

 

[Centrals]

I have yet to come across any unsafe operators in this country over last 19yrs.
If you do not mind the all inclusive package ie. dive, eat and sleep in the same place then Anilao is the place. 2-3hrs by car from Manila International Airport so your arrival time is NOT an issue. If both of us love macro then this THE place. Club O seems to receive a lot of good reports.
If you want something more flexible then Puerto Galera which is just across the channel is highly recommended. This is the place where SB will invade next June. Plenty of very good operators to choose from expensive(Atlantis) to budget(South Sea) to suit your pocket. Most dive sites are within 10-15mins away. I really do not understand why some dive shops can charge such a high rate for diving.
If you do not mind an extra domestic flight, then Dauin(Dumageute) is also very good. "Liquid" is my recommendation.

 

[drbill]

Dove with Club O. in Anilao. Great operation for serious underwater imagers. Dove with Action Divers in Sabang (Puerto Galera). Also a very good small operator.

 

[drrich2]

Instead of asking about the best diving, I wanted to know what you consider to be the safest diving/dive operations in the Phillippines.

Never been to the Philippines. I am curious to 'unpack' your question, since I think it draws on different issues and that might help others best address your concerns. Lots of people want relatively safe, good dive op.s and conditions well within their abilities. Nothing wrong with that. Now, trying to find the 'safest' can be another issue.

So, to what extent are the following (which aren't specific to the Philippines) big concerns to you?

1.) Very benign dive conditions (e.g.: shallow dives, low current, high viz., tropical aquarium-like conditions)?

2.) Don't see anything too scary in the water (e.g.: sharks, barracuda, somebody already pointed out sea snakes, etc&#8230?

3.) An elaborate, formal 'safety plan' on the boat - perhaps a big boat, plenty of staff, you can see right where an AED & O2 bottles are, etc…?

4.) A lot of 'hand-holding' by staff, such as is commonly done for vacation divers (e.g.: guides frequently stopping & having you report your air pressure/volume remaining, keeping an eye on your depth, perhaps another staffer following behind the group in case anyone gets into trouble, etc&#8230? This may involve mandatory conservative dive practices - such as the group ends the dive together when someone hits X PSI, or sticking to relatively shallow sites, etc...

5.) A destination relatively closer than some alternatives to a decent hospital or the like in case something goes wrong?

Each of these factors can impact how some people view the 'safety' of an option.

Richard.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

If I ever return to the Philippines I would go with Crystal Blue Resort. I used Club-O once. Although the food was good and the employees were wonderful the resort sucked. The beds were full of bugs and each night we had to sweep off the termite droppings from the bamboo ceiling. There was no water pressure so we had to go eleven days before showering at the Seoul airport. I don't mind roughing it while camping but not while spending thousands for a vacation.

 

[afdgf]

Drrich2,
I guess what I am reacting to is some of the discussion about the lack of infrastructure (and having boat captain fall asleep, no radio etc.) in Indonesia (if memory serves me correctly which is doubtful at my age) and whether that is also the case in the Philippines. I would settle for: (a) boat captains who stay awake and are sober when they drive the boat and do not go to refuel when there are divers in the water depending on them, (b) some kind of radio on the boat that works and the captain know how to work it and someone who responds appropriately at the other end, (c) dedicated dive boat and not just a fishing boat that has never dealt with divers before, (d) my wife does not like a lot of sharks, a few are OK, sea snakes are OK. Mostly I want an operation that has a decent track record of not losing divers due to their own incompetence or carelessness. Some of what I have read on SB does not engender much confidence about diving in this part of the world. What I am starting to think is that the problems attributed to Indonesia (and possibly elsewhere) do not necessarily apply to the Philippines, but I wanted to get some feedback from people with experience in these areas of the world which I do not have. Does that answer "unpack" enough?

 

[drrich2]

Sounds good, and like what most people would want.

Richard.

 

[afdgf]

I guess what I am struggling with is the fact that when we scuba dive, we wind up going a lot of different countries. In the US, we have the coast guard as the authority and who establishes some kind of standards. In California, we have the health jurisdictions who rate eating establishments on an A-F scale, which even though there are problems and it definitely is not perfect, at least it is something. When we choose a dive establishment to go diving with that is in another country, we do not have any kind of international standards or database to look up the "grade" for that dive operation (that I know about). So that leaves us with peoples' opinions expressed on places like scubaboard and, for better or worse, trip advisor. Even if there were some kind of checklist, it would be better than nothing. 1. Dedicated boat - check, 2. radio that works - check, 3. first aid kit - check, 4. oxygen - check, 5. life preservers - check. It seems like the kind of thing that happens with the coast guard. Some countries might be very good, but it is hard to find that out. So I guess I am trying in the only way that I know how at this point, to find out about dive operations in the Philippines. If there is an easier way to do this (in addition to reading previous SB posts), I hope that someone will tell me. Maybe someone is knowledgeable about the Philippines and can describe their equivalent of coast guard inspections/standards and what to expect.
It seems like one of the pieces of information that is available, sometimes, is the existence of compression chamber and location (sometimes).

 

[Damselfish]

I've only done 2 resorts/dive ops and one liveaboard so far in the Philippines, and they were all safe and good. That's not a lot of personal experience, but nothing gives me the sense the country is overflowing with unsafe dive ops. Being in "that part of the world" is way too big of a generalization to be useful.

You do seem to have some other preferences. I think you would be better off figuring out which area you want to go to based on the time of year, what you want to see (or not see), etc. Then look at your choices in where to stay and who to dive with and confirm you will be comfortable with them. I doubt you will find yourself eliminating lots of places if any because they seem unsafe. (If I was going to worry about drivers in the Philippines it would be my land driver, not my boat driver...)

I have no idea what Philippines Coast Guard or other regulations say or how well enforced they are. I have seen the CG at work and they seemed like well trained and professional folks. I think if they have a shortcoming it would be not having as many boats and all the equipment and money they could really use to properly cover the vast amount of territory in question. If you are concerned about deco chambers that is worth researching, as there are certainly places you can go that might be further from a working chamber than you would like.