Seahorse Sanctuary in Bohol judged the Best in PI

[rhadamantus]

Sagay Marine Reserve, second. Twin Rocks, Anilao ranks third.

Seahorse sanctuary in Bohol judged the best in RP - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

who tried diving in Sagay?

 

[bing.]

coolness

 

[marku]

Was able to dive the Sagay sanctuary couple of years ago on a survey/research trip w/ Silliman. So-so diving. Shallow reefs (mostly<40'). Huge area though.

 

[marku]

Read the article, I guess they didn't have rec diving/tourism in mind when they came up with the criteria for choosing the best MPA's. Spent a lot of time in the Handumon sanctuary when I worked with Project Seahorse for a year. What luminous seahorses?!!? I wasn't part of the seahorse surveys then, but my team did go looking for them several times and they definitely weren't luminous. Nocturnal, yes, but definitely not luminous. In fairness, they had the best sanctuary implementation-wise in that area back then. I haven't been back there for around 5 years now. And We saw a small school of jacks, some medium-sized napoleons, and big groupers there before.

Congrats Handumon! Nobody does fiesta like the Bol-anons!

 

[rhadamantus]

oh true... nobody does fiesta like the Bol-anons.. although, marku, u should not forget Tanjay has pretty aggressive behaviour during fiestas!

 

[marku]

Aggresive in a positive way I hope. I think the Bol-anons have them beat.

 

[jigo]

is there any dive op organizing dives to the seahorse sanctuary?

 

[marku]

Not that I know of. But I was last there in 2002/03. Back then only the guys with Project Seahorse regularly dived the sanctuaries there. Handumon is in Northwest Bohol, the side facing Cebu, so if there are any diveshops doing trips in that area they would probably be based in Mactan which is ~1-2 hours from Handumon/Getafe.

You can reach Getafe via Tagbilaran also; it's about 2-3 hours by v-hire.

 

[clgsamson]

you can ask Maria of Polaris, Jigo.

 

[jigo]

thanks Mark. is that near Olango? i've been to the bird sanctuary in olango and the CRMP people mentioned some sustainable harvesting of seahorses.

Caloy, will ask Maria if we decide to stay in Polaris in February. still cant decide between comfort of Polaris and Bobet's eye in Estrella. thanks!