Best Diving site in Philippines

Hi,
I'll be in Philippines for about 10 days in January. Wondering which diving site is best .. tho not looking for liveaboard.

Any place with good visibility and tons of colorful fish..

Have done lot of web surfing but its hard to tell. Puerto Galera looks pretty good.

Any suggestions?

Todd Pitman

Welcome, tpitman. You may want to check out this earlier thread which has some very good information on both Malaysia and the Philippines.

http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?threadid=16266&perpage=15&display=&pagenumber=1

I hope this helps in some way.

P.G. is decent and cheap. Went with Asia Divers and stayed at El Galleon. They even arranged land transport form a Manila hotel. Had a great time though different form any other place I have visited. Ask me if you want any more specifics. Have Fun.

As I wrote in my last post , P.G. is great for Macro life.

You see alot of rare things there , Frog Fish , Angler Fish , Dragonets , Spiny Devil Fish , LEaf Fish , Star Gazers and Lots of Nudibranch are just the things I remember off the top of my head from my one visit there.

I repeat myself when I say that Atlantis was very good.

El Galleon also looked good and probably had the best bar.

Cheers

Edit:

You can get in touch with the Manager of Atlantis by emailing him on Andy@Atlantishotel.com, I hope he doesn't mind me posting that.

I have just returned home from Puerto Galera where I spent xmas at the Atlantis Dive Resort. Superb accommodation and food, excellent staff and first rate diving. Can highly recommend you pay them a visit. I'm going back this year and will stay longer this time. Contact Andy - you wont regret it. Web site www.atlantishotel.com

I have also been to Atlantis Puerta Gallera - fab diving, great dive guides, really good management that takes care of every need you have - they even lent me money!!!! I went for 5 days and could not leave - I stayed another two!! and they took care of everything for me.

It is 100% on my "return to" list - the macro life is the best I have ever seen (although I have not been to Lembeh yet!).

First poster inserted a link to a similar thread where i already put what are my personal bests in the Phils, I won't resume what I wrote there.

However most of the replies here mention Puerto Galera which is a very good dive spot, which provides both plenty of macro life and high voltage dives (never experienced such currents as out of the Canyons), though once again and IMHO Visayas are even better. The downside of PG is that this is a mostly party and girlie place, this is not the place if you want good beaches (the only one is on Big Lalaguna) or a bit of quietness. Now if nightlife is also on your schedule PG can fit your expectations...

PS : even heavy nightclubbers or after a beer contest, everybody deserves a bit of peacefulness : I would rather suggest taking your headquarters on Big La Laguna, walking distance from Sabang's discos and bars, at El Galleon or the better BigLalaguna beach resort (www.llbc.com.ph) and avoid Sabang hotels for a little nightsleep.