astralmind
Contributor
Well, it’s now been close to a month since we’ve landed back home in rainy Canada where muck diving isn’t as exciting!
I’ve been willing to write this bit for quite some time but it seems that if I wait until I’m done sorting through my pics it’ll take a couple of months so … here we go !
We are a couple in our mid 30’s living in Canada, mostly diving locally (Qc, Ont) as well as in the Caribbean (Roatan). We’ve been to Indonesia once 3 years ago (North Sulawesi, Bangka + day in Lembeh) and have been diving for a bit over 3 years now (230 dives or so). I enjoy photography while being an amateur hobbyist at best and my wife recently got a decent camera so our goal was to find an affordable location where we could check off a few cool critters from the Bucket List.
While we had an absolute blast in Bangka years ago, staying with Nomad Divers, we found out that flying to the Philippines was heck of a lot cheaper for us (cheap) Canadians. As well, without really knowing if we’d enjoy it or not, we were interested in spending more time hunting for weirdness as opposed to hanging out in a beautiful coral landscape. Puerto Galera was our first pic but thanks to forum members, we ended up choosing Anilao (and Buceo), a place we hadn’t heard of before.
There are already a lot of praise filled threads regarding both Anilao and the ‘hotel’ itself, Buceo Anilao but I’m just adding to the lot by confirming what has been said.
Buceo Anilao is exactly what it advertises to be: Quaint, comfortable AC rooms with clean and modern bathrooms, ridiculously amazing sunsets with the perfect view, tons of stairs, extremely well organized dive Ops and good food. While definitely not the cheapest (regardless of the whole debate on dives/boat rates), I believe it is a great value, possibly the best. Hard to measure against places I haven’t visited but I feel like I got my money’s worth, all this while having a blast.
This is awfully cliché but Filipinos are incredibly gracious to use the expression from a fellow vacationer – Every single one of the staff member was helpful and seemed to be enjoying their job or at the very least didn’t look like they were undergoing some form of torture (a symptom that is often observed in the Caribbean’s). The fact that they were appropriately staffed (even generously) certainly didn't hurt! While there was an important language barrier between ourselves and some of the staff (need to learn some Tagalog I guess) we still managed to joke around and laugh quite a bit!
Our guide Enzo was extremely good at spotting critters and was very respectful of the sea life, we couldn’t have asked for more. It looked like other guests were also satisfied with their guide but I like to think we got the best
The boat crew, who’s name I shamefully forgot were equally outstanding and deserve a lot of praise – From preparing our gear to helping us in/out the boat to playing some of the cheesiest 80s music on surface intervals (Air Supply in between dives in the middle of the pacific ocean I mean.. come one!) they were awesome.
Food was mostly good, sometimes great (the coleslaw was shockingly good) and served in copious amount at a very fair price. We spent 16 days (!) at Buceo and didn’t grow tired of the food so that says something I guess.
As for the diving well.. we dove 45 times over 14 days which is a modest dive regimen compared to others guests. It is very tricky to compare one trip to another so I’ll avoid going there but can say that we were more that satisfied with our overall experience. The first 10 days brought great conditions with mild currents at worst and ok viz. The last few days were a bit choppier but nothing like home. We managed to see A LOT of critters (Blue Ringed Octo x2, Wunderpussx3, Mimicx2, numerous flamboyant cuttlefish, Mantis shrimp galore incl with their eggs, Mandarin courting, plethora of nudis including the legendary sheep nudis, tons of frogfishes, groups of blue spotted rays… and other things). Not seen and missed – Rhinopia, harlequin shrimp, Motoki octo and bobtail squid. Conclusion – our bucket list just got helluva lot shorter !
We were also blessed with amazing dive buddies which I guess is random good luck but these guys contributed to making our trip that much better. Weather, another factor over which you have no control was perfect with the exception of a single rainy day.
It will be hard not to revisit Anilao (and stay at Buceo, that’s for sure) as our experience was perfect from beginning to end but at the same time, there are so many places to visit. Highly recommended!
As for pics well.. I’m still in the process of sorting through so there are still some missing and a lot that won’t make the final cut but here we go:
https://goo.gl/photos/5wzTrEkEWv2Ju2BB8
I’ve been willing to write this bit for quite some time but it seems that if I wait until I’m done sorting through my pics it’ll take a couple of months so … here we go !
We are a couple in our mid 30’s living in Canada, mostly diving locally (Qc, Ont) as well as in the Caribbean (Roatan). We’ve been to Indonesia once 3 years ago (North Sulawesi, Bangka + day in Lembeh) and have been diving for a bit over 3 years now (230 dives or so). I enjoy photography while being an amateur hobbyist at best and my wife recently got a decent camera so our goal was to find an affordable location where we could check off a few cool critters from the Bucket List.
While we had an absolute blast in Bangka years ago, staying with Nomad Divers, we found out that flying to the Philippines was heck of a lot cheaper for us (cheap) Canadians. As well, without really knowing if we’d enjoy it or not, we were interested in spending more time hunting for weirdness as opposed to hanging out in a beautiful coral landscape. Puerto Galera was our first pic but thanks to forum members, we ended up choosing Anilao (and Buceo), a place we hadn’t heard of before.
There are already a lot of praise filled threads regarding both Anilao and the ‘hotel’ itself, Buceo Anilao but I’m just adding to the lot by confirming what has been said.
Buceo Anilao is exactly what it advertises to be: Quaint, comfortable AC rooms with clean and modern bathrooms, ridiculously amazing sunsets with the perfect view, tons of stairs, extremely well organized dive Ops and good food. While definitely not the cheapest (regardless of the whole debate on dives/boat rates), I believe it is a great value, possibly the best. Hard to measure against places I haven’t visited but I feel like I got my money’s worth, all this while having a blast.
This is awfully cliché but Filipinos are incredibly gracious to use the expression from a fellow vacationer – Every single one of the staff member was helpful and seemed to be enjoying their job or at the very least didn’t look like they were undergoing some form of torture (a symptom that is often observed in the Caribbean’s). The fact that they were appropriately staffed (even generously) certainly didn't hurt! While there was an important language barrier between ourselves and some of the staff (need to learn some Tagalog I guess) we still managed to joke around and laugh quite a bit!
Our guide Enzo was extremely good at spotting critters and was very respectful of the sea life, we couldn’t have asked for more. It looked like other guests were also satisfied with their guide but I like to think we got the best
The boat crew, who’s name I shamefully forgot were equally outstanding and deserve a lot of praise – From preparing our gear to helping us in/out the boat to playing some of the cheesiest 80s music on surface intervals (Air Supply in between dives in the middle of the pacific ocean I mean.. come one!) they were awesome.Food was mostly good, sometimes great (the coleslaw was shockingly good) and served in copious amount at a very fair price. We spent 16 days (!) at Buceo and didn’t grow tired of the food so that says something I guess.
As for the diving well.. we dove 45 times over 14 days which is a modest dive regimen compared to others guests. It is very tricky to compare one trip to another so I’ll avoid going there but can say that we were more that satisfied with our overall experience. The first 10 days brought great conditions with mild currents at worst and ok viz. The last few days were a bit choppier but nothing like home. We managed to see A LOT of critters (Blue Ringed Octo x2, Wunderpussx3, Mimicx2, numerous flamboyant cuttlefish, Mantis shrimp galore incl with their eggs, Mandarin courting, plethora of nudis including the legendary sheep nudis, tons of frogfishes, groups of blue spotted rays… and other things). Not seen and missed – Rhinopia, harlequin shrimp, Motoki octo and bobtail squid. Conclusion – our bucket list just got helluva lot shorter !
We were also blessed with amazing dive buddies which I guess is random good luck but these guys contributed to making our trip that much better. Weather, another factor over which you have no control was perfect with the exception of a single rainy day.
It will be hard not to revisit Anilao (and stay at Buceo, that’s for sure) as our experience was perfect from beginning to end but at the same time, there are so many places to visit. Highly recommended!
As for pics well.. I’m still in the process of sorting through so there are still some missing and a lot that won’t make the final cut but here we go:
https://goo.gl/photos/5wzTrEkEWv2Ju2BB8
