Dive spots around Panglao Island, Bohol

Balicasag Island is surely one of the most spectacular dive spots in the Philippines.

Balicasag Island is just a 45 min boat ride from our dive center in Alona Beach, Panglao Island. Usually we conduct double dives at this pearl of Philippines. Slops and walls drop to endless depths. Circling schools of baracuda and jack fish drift along coral-covered walls... a divers paradise!

 

 

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Balicasag Black Forest

Location: Poblacion, Panglao Island

Distance: 10km from Alona beach, approximately 25min with motor banca

Composition: Steep slope

Experience level: More experienced Open Water Divers or higher

Depth: 8 – 40m

Snorkeling:  Not advisable

What to see: Lots of coral heads at the shallow area. The black corals (Antipathes) are to be found at the depth of 35 – 45m. Also there are various numbers of anthias, rock cods groupers, scorpion fishes, squirrel fishes, parrotfish, wrasse, damsel fishes, anemone fishes, trigger fishes (Aggressive at the months of May to July).

Further description: Located at the south side of Panglao Island. Start the dive with the slope on the right shoulder. At the beginning you may experience current against you which will change after approximately 20min and you are drifting.

 

Balicasag Fish Sanctuary

Location: Poblacion, Panglao Island

Distance: 10km from Alona beach, approximately 25min with motor banca

Composition: Wall dive

Experience level: Easy dive site for Open Water Divers or higher

Depth: 3 – 35m

Snorkeling: Good for snorkeling. The reef top is very shallow and a lot of stuff to see.

What to see: Our favorite attraction is the large school of silver jack’s, the big eye trevally. They seam to be accustomed to divers already because often you can find yourself within this huge school. Midnight snappers, and different kinds of sweetlips. And of cause the usual coral fishes.

Further description: Located at the south side of Panglao Island.  Pretty straight wall with many caverns and over-hangs. Most of the time we start the dive with the wall on the left shoulder going direction Rudy’s Rock.

 

Balicasag Diver's Heaven

Location: Poblacion, Panglao Island

Distance: 10km from Alona beach, approximately 25min with motor banca

Composition: Steep slope

Experience level: Easy dive site for Open Water Divers or higher

Depth: 8 – 40m

Snorkeling: Good for snorkeling towards the shore at shallow depth

What to see: Many gold band fusilier, big mouth mackerel, mid night snapper, red tooth trigger fish, and of cause turtles. At the ledge of the reef you can see great corals such as brown daisy coral, and some big bucket sponges.

Further description: Located at the south side of Panglao Island. Start the dive with the steep slope on the left shoulder moving towards Cathedral in north-west direction. Depending on current you may start your dive towards Black Forest, slope on your right shoulder.

 

Balicasag – Royal Garden or Cathedral

Location: Poblacion, Panglao Island

Distance: 10km from Alona beach, approximately 25min with motor banca

Composition: Wall dive

Experience level: Easy dive site for Open Water Divers or higher

Depth: 3 – 40m

Snorkeling: Very good for snorkeling

What to see: Yellow bucket sponges and large and colorful sea fans. Barracudas and angler fish, snubnose drummer and off the wall the big mouth mackerels. Back to the wall you will see golden sergeant fish, mid night snapper, many pyramid butterfly fish, and the one-spot snapper.

Further description:    Located at the south side of Panglao Island. A nice wall with big over-hangs. On a bright day you will have beautiful light reflections inside the cathedral.

 

Balicasag Rudy's Rock

Location: Poblacion, Panglao Island

Distance: 10km from Alona beach, approximately 25min with motor banca

Composition: Wall dive

Experience level: Easy dive site for Open Water Divers or higher

Depth: 3 – 35m

Snorkeling: Good for snorkeling

What to see: Many soft and hard corals, small cavers and crevices. Often you can see a large school of jack fishes (Locally mamsa) or big eye trevallies circling around like a tornado. Mid night snappers are accompanying  sweetlips.

Further description: Located at the south side of Panglao Island. You can’t miss the land mark which is the stick at the shallow area in front of the beach.
Start the dive with the wall on the left shoulder or the wall on your right shoulder.

 

Pamilacan Island

Location: Baclayon, Panglao Island

Distance: 20km from Alona beach. 50min with motor banca

Composition: Slope dive         

Experience level: For advanced divers or higher

Depth: 8 – 35m

Snorkeling: Not advisable

What to see: At the slope you can find many coral heads and soft corals and very special are the coral strings. School of napoleon wrasse or double headed maori wrasse, barracudas, bat fish. Manta rays are seen occasionally.

Further description: Start the first dive in front of the small rocky island and the second dive before your exit point of the first dive. Pamilacan is recovering from intense illegal fishing but we can see improvements.   

 

Snake Island

Location: Libaong, Panglao Island

Distance: 10.5km from Alona beach. 30min with motor banca

Composition: Shoal dive (Under Water Island)     

Experience level: Advanced divers or higher

Depth: 9 – 30m

Snorkeling: Not possible

What to see: Black-white banded sea snakes, moray eels, starry moray eels, lion fish, nudi branches. At the top area lots of sea urchins. 

Further description: We only dive there when the conditions are moderate. But still, often we experienced strong current. Be aware of your NDL and of the fact that you have to do a safety stop in mid water.

 

Puntod Island

Location: Doljo, Panglao Island

Distance: 11.5km from Alona beach, 31min by motor banca

Composition: Wall and slope dives  

Experience level: Easy dive site for Open Water Divers or higher

Depth: 3 – 40m

Snorkeling: Ideal conditions

What to see: Beautiful hard and soft corals, especially at the shallow part. Small caves (bring dive light). One-striped fusilier, ribbon eels, raggy scorpion fish, anthias, nudi branches, puffer fish, many small fishes.

Further description: Located at the west side of Panglao Island. Ideal for shallow dives and photography. An amazing area at the top reef with hard and soft corals and the white sandy bottoms in between.

 

Arco Point

Location: Libaong, Panglao Island

Distance: 4.5km from Alona beach.

Composition: Wall dive           

Experience level: Easy dive site for Open Water Divers or higher

Depth: 4 – 27m

Snorkeling: Very good for snorkeling

What to see: At the cave you can find Cardinal fish, Sergeant major fish. Around the entrance of the hole (8m) are well hidden Raggy scorpion fish. Inside the cave at about 10m you can see White-eyed moray eel and Black finned snake eels.  Along the wall you find Groupers, Wrasse, Butterfly fish and Cuttlefish.

Further description: Located at the south side of Panglao Island. When you begin the dive at the hole try to avoid diving through it. It destructs the area. Good divers may pass through without touching the walls of the hole but it will only encourage inexperienced divers to follow. We should observe at the entrance of the hole, dive around it and approach from the hole again from wall side. After you enjoyed the hole/cave continue your dive having the wall on the right shoulder. The wall gets successively smaller and at the end of the dive at the ledge you are at approximately 5m. Look out for Angler/Frog fish.

 

Crystal Sanctuary

Location: Danao, Panglao Island

Distance: 400m from Alona beach, 1min by motor banca

Composition: Wall at the beginning and at the end sloping

Experience level: Easy dive site for Open Water Divers or higher

Depth: 3 – 25m

Snorkeling: Good for snorkeling but sanctuary restrictions

What to see: Many beautiful hard and soft corals. Schools of jacks, bat fish and sometimes barracudas. Big eye trevally, lone barracudas, big mouth mackerel, fusilier, bat fish, surgeon fish, snappers, and damsels. Gobbies, nudibranches, coral pipefish, mantis shrimp, frog fish etc. And you can enjoy macro dives as well.

Further description:    Located at the south side of Panglao Island. It’s easy to get there and the closest dive site to Alona beach. Good for beginner and photographers will be busy taking all the shots!

 

Danao

Location: Danao, Panglao Island

Distance: 3km from Alona beach, 10min by motor banca

Composition: Wall/steep slope

Experience level: Easy dive site for Open Water Divers or higher

Depth: 8 – 25m

Snorkeling:                    Good for snorkeling

What to see:                   The sandy area is most interesting and you better dive slowly so that you doesn’t miss a lot of camouflaging and hiding fishes such as flounders, soles, blue spotted stingrays, sand eels, dragon fish, and jaw fish.
At the top reef you will see many hard corals. It’s a perfect place for a safety stop.

Further description:    Located at the south side of Panglao Island.        

 

Doljo - Housereef

Location: Doljo, Panglao Island

Distance: 15km from Alona beach, 35min by motor banca, 15min by car

Composition: Wall dive

Experience level: Easy dive site for Open Water Divers or higher

Depth: 3 – 25m

Snorkeling: Good for snorkeling. Shallow top reef

What to see: This dive site makes these divers happy whom are into macro photography or just bringing their macro magnifying lens (Or the once with the good eyes).  Beautiful wall dive with many kind of hard corals and sandy spots in between within shallow area.
If you take a closer look into/under hard corals, you will find crabs, shrimps, gobies, and a very popular fish, the pajama cardinal fish. Try to count how many different kinds of cardinal fishes are there (If you get it right we will give you an extra dive…free of cause.) 
You will also see nudibranches, harlequin ghost pipefish and clown frog fish. (They are hiding somewhere). 

Further description: Located at the west side of Panglao Island. It is also one of our favorite dive sites in case we have strong Habagat wind on the Alona side.

 

Doljo Point

Location: Doljo, Panglao Island

Distance: 15km from Alona beach, 35min by motor banca, 15min by car

Composition: Wall and slope dives  

Experience level: Easy dive site for Open Water Divers or higher

Depth: 3 – 40m

Snorkeling: Possible – but a bit deep. Snorkelers need to head more towards the shore.

What to see: Big sea fans, many colorful soft corals, bucket sponges, elephant ear sponges and big leather corals are all over. Giant frog fishes are hiding on sponges or corals, Leaf fishes on hard corals, Dragon fishes at the sandy area, Spine cheek anemone fishes, which are not common at the Panglao area, Ghost pipe fish and Bristle-tail-filefish camouflaging at the sea grass area.

Further description: Located at the west side of Panglao Island. Good for deep dives but be careful, it is easy to drop too deep. At the shallow depth macro diving is ideal. Very popular for wide angle photography because of the combination of hard coral and the many purple colors. There is a big chance to see manta rays or hammerhead sharks in February and March, at the depth of 25m to 40m. The possibility of seeing a Whale shark is valid but you must be a really lucky person that day. If there is stronger current, a school of Barracuda shows up. We head for Doljo when the weather condition at the south end of Panglao doesn’t permit us to dive.

Kalipayan

Location: Danao, Panglao Island

Distance: 2km from Alona beach, 8min by motor banca

Composition: Wall at the beginning and at the end sloping

Experience level: Easy dive site for Open Water Divers or higher

Depth: 3 – 27m

Snorkeling:  Good for snorkeling

What to see: Sandy slope, macro dive. Not so many big fish around here but very popular dive site for photographer. Blue and table corals, sea fans and brown daisy corals. Dot head rock cod, small barracudas, black and yellow harlequin ghost pipe fish.
Blue spotted ray, dragon fish, garden eels, long-horned cowfish, and snake eel at sandy slope area. You will see panda clown fish if you follow the slope down to 22 -27m. Watch out, some of them are pretty aggressive and if you look carefully under or near anemones, you can sometimes see their eggs. And also shrimps and crabs are living with them, don’t miss it!
On the way back to the top reef, you still can’t leave your eyes on. Ghost pipefish, banded stick pipefish, crab-eyed goby, Nudibranches, harlequin ghost pipefish, scorpion fish, flounders, etc.
So, its better you bring a full charged battery for your camera!
May and June watch out for Titan trigger fish.

Further description: Located at the south side of Panglao Island. Good for macro diving and macro photography at the shallow depth.  

 

Momo Beach

Location: Tangnan, Panglao Island

Distance: 20km from Alona beach, 40min by motor banca, 20min by car

Composition: Wall and slope dive    

Experience level: Easy dive site for Open Water Divers or higher

Depth: – 40m

Snorkeling: Possible – nice stuff to see at 3 to 4 meters

What to see: Nudibranches, leaf fishes, many kinds of juvenile wrasse, pajama cardinal fish, red eyed goby, brown barred goby, and harlequin filefish. We can also find red spot cardinal fish which is unfamiliar in south Panglao.

Further description: Located at the north side of Panglao Island. Good for macro diving and macro photography at the shallow depth.  We also dive here during the time of the south-west monsoon or Habagat.

 

NAPALING

Location: Tangnan, Panglao Island, north of Panglao

Distance: 21km from Alona beach, 45min by motor banca, 20 min with car

Composition: Wall and slope dive    

Experience level: Easy dive site for Open Water Divers or higher

Depth: 3 – 40m

Snorkeling: Possible – Good conditions

What to see: Nudi branches, schools of banner fish, leaf fish, several kinds of juvenile wrasse, red eyed goby, cardinal fish, young barracudas, etc.

Further description:    In case of rough waters (Especially during Habagat - southwest monsoon) on the south side of Panglao, where Alona beach is located, we can still dive at Napaling at the north side.
Good for macro diving.
Ideal for Photography at shallower depth.
Careful with entries at the shallow part of the reef.

 

House Reef

Location: Tawala and Danao, Panglao Island

Distance: 120m (From the beach to the ledge) from Alona beach. Top reef size: Average of 110m width and 800m length.

Composition: Wall and slope dives  

Experience level: Easy dive site for Open Water Divers or higher

Depth: 3 – 24m

Snorkeling: Good snorkeling conditions

What to see: Harlequin ghost pipe fish, Small Barracudas, Purple queen anthias fish, Moorish idol, Regal angelfish, Nudi branches, Stigrays at sandy slope after 18m, at night dives Basket stars.

 

BBC

Further description: Located at the south side of Panglao Island. Since the top reef has an average width of 110m all dives are boat dives. Right in the middle is the most beautiful part, excellent for discover scuba diving, check-up dives or skill training. The wall ends at average 18m and a sandy slope will reveal several species.

Location: Bolod, Panglao Island

Distance: 3.5km from Alona beach. 10min by motor banca.

Composition: Steep slope dive

Experience level: Easy dive site for Open Water Divers or higher

Depth: 0 – 30m

Snorkeling: Good snorkeling conditions

What to see: Very special are the Brown daisy corals. Pygmy sea horses are to be found….with a good eye. Schools of Sergeant mayors, Black damsel fish, Banded snake eel and on the sandy slope black and Blue lined nudi branches.

Further description: Located at the south side of Panglao Island. This dive site is right in front of Bohol Beach Club. At the end of the dive you will find two small Jeepneys (Traditional Filipino car). These two wrecks are there for quite some time and you can expect few nice species around this area. One jeepney is at 10m and the other one at 8m.

 

Habagat Wreck

Location: Danao, Panglao Island

Distance: 2.5km from Alona beach, 9min by motor banca

Composition: Steep slope

Experience level: Easy dive site for Open Water Divers or higher

Depth: 8 – 35m

Snorkeling: Good for snorkeling

What to see: Tall fin batfish, big lion fish, cardinal fish, frog fish, angler fish, harlequin ghost pipe fish

Further description: Located at the south side of Panglao Island. Good for macro diving and macro photography at the shallow depth.  Usual dive pattern would be descending to 35m directly to the wreck, than following the sandy slope towards north-west to the ‘S’ shaped wall with overhang.

 

Cabilao Island

Cabilao Island used to be known for the hammerhead sharks specially when the temperature of the water is colder (December and January). The wall is very nice with many gorgones, sea-fans hard corals, etc. Barracudas, butterfly fishes, bonitas, and other tropical fishes are also abundant. The wall goes down to more than 50 meters, and on one place it start only at 30 meters deep.

 

Apo Island

Together with other small islands located south of Negros Province, Apo Island is as beautiful in the surface as it is underwater.

 

Sumilon Island

Situated in the south of Cebu, Sumilon is a small island surrounded by a white sand beach. The dive starts in 5 meters of water, until the end of the drop off around 18-22 meters deep.

 

 

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