Greetings, and thanks in advance for any well-informed replies.
My brother and I are considering diving the Philippines in the late March - early May timeframe, and as the scuba pro, I've been tasked with doing the research and recommending to him where we might go. Problem is: I've never dived the Philippines. Can y'all help me out please?
I've spent many hours browsing the posts here on scubaboard.com and a lot of looking around elsewhere online. I used to work as a scuba instructor/divemaster, so I'm well aware that what I read on a dive center's website might be a bit (or a lot) biased ... thus, I'm hoping for some responses from divers who have dived a lot in the Philippines but who aren't necessarily trying very hard to get me to book a week of diving with them or their company.
A while ago, I was sold on Anilao; before that it was Apo island at the top of my list ... a few others have also been contenders. (A liveaboard to Tubbataha is out of my price range, or that would be my 1st choice) ... But now, I'm thinking that because my bro is a fairly new diver (< 50 dives, almost all in Thailand) and is interested in a good mix of pelagics, big schools and schoals, macro stuff, and wrecks, then maybe the best option other than Tubbataha is Malapascua. Evidently, many Philippines sites offer a great diversity of small fishes and macro critters, but don't have big animals, don't have much in the way of massive quantities of silvery pelagics, and don't have blindingly thick schools of fish and schoals of fishes. Many of the best sites also lack good historic shipwrecks. I'm always delighted to see a nudibranch or a frogfish I've never seen before, but my brother would prefer to see some big stuff and hordes of colorful fishes as well. He's of course happy with a ghost pipefish or a mantis shrimp, and he got a big kick out of the mating cuttlefish -- and of course, turtles and octopi and morays are always crowd-pleasers -- but I think he'd like at least a few dives with big schools of barracudas and jacks/trevallies feeding on a baitball, and swarms of colorful reef fishes, and at least a chance of seeing a shark or a big ray or two. All he's seen have been leopard sharks, whereas I have seen at least 11 identifiable shark species [and some sharks I couldn't ID] -- and believe me: 8 circling bull sharks or a dozen circling sand-tiger sharks definitely raise the excitement level well above that of a sleepy leopard shark or two! As for me, I've dived here and there in 6 or 8 Caribbean countries, some of eastern Pacific (California, Costa Rica, Ecuador), and hundreds of dives on both the west and east coasts of Thailand. Before I became a scuba instructor, I used to dive the World War II wrecks of east coast North America, and I'm a (novice) tec diver. I absolutely love wreck diving, so someplace where I could do a couple fishy and coral-encrusted recreational wreck dives with my brother, and then also a couple deep, deco wreck dives without him would be ideal.
Your thoughts?
Many thanks in advance,
M
P.S. Of course, I'm happy to give you my opinions about the places I've dived: much of Thailand, North Carolina, Belize, Honduras, etc. Ask and ye shall receive!
My brother and I are considering diving the Philippines in the late March - early May timeframe, and as the scuba pro, I've been tasked with doing the research and recommending to him where we might go. Problem is: I've never dived the Philippines. Can y'all help me out please?
I've spent many hours browsing the posts here on scubaboard.com and a lot of looking around elsewhere online. I used to work as a scuba instructor/divemaster, so I'm well aware that what I read on a dive center's website might be a bit (or a lot) biased ... thus, I'm hoping for some responses from divers who have dived a lot in the Philippines but who aren't necessarily trying very hard to get me to book a week of diving with them or their company.
A while ago, I was sold on Anilao; before that it was Apo island at the top of my list ... a few others have also been contenders. (A liveaboard to Tubbataha is out of my price range, or that would be my 1st choice) ... But now, I'm thinking that because my bro is a fairly new diver (< 50 dives, almost all in Thailand) and is interested in a good mix of pelagics, big schools and schoals, macro stuff, and wrecks, then maybe the best option other than Tubbataha is Malapascua. Evidently, many Philippines sites offer a great diversity of small fishes and macro critters, but don't have big animals, don't have much in the way of massive quantities of silvery pelagics, and don't have blindingly thick schools of fish and schoals of fishes. Many of the best sites also lack good historic shipwrecks. I'm always delighted to see a nudibranch or a frogfish I've never seen before, but my brother would prefer to see some big stuff and hordes of colorful fishes as well. He's of course happy with a ghost pipefish or a mantis shrimp, and he got a big kick out of the mating cuttlefish -- and of course, turtles and octopi and morays are always crowd-pleasers -- but I think he'd like at least a few dives with big schools of barracudas and jacks/trevallies feeding on a baitball, and swarms of colorful reef fishes, and at least a chance of seeing a shark or a big ray or two. All he's seen have been leopard sharks, whereas I have seen at least 11 identifiable shark species [and some sharks I couldn't ID] -- and believe me: 8 circling bull sharks or a dozen circling sand-tiger sharks definitely raise the excitement level well above that of a sleepy leopard shark or two! As for me, I've dived here and there in 6 or 8 Caribbean countries, some of eastern Pacific (California, Costa Rica, Ecuador), and hundreds of dives on both the west and east coasts of Thailand. Before I became a scuba instructor, I used to dive the World War II wrecks of east coast North America, and I'm a (novice) tec diver. I absolutely love wreck diving, so someplace where I could do a couple fishy and coral-encrusted recreational wreck dives with my brother, and then also a couple deep, deco wreck dives without him would be ideal.
Your thoughts?
Many thanks in advance,
M
P.S. Of course, I'm happy to give you my opinions about the places I've dived: much of Thailand, North Carolina, Belize, Honduras, etc. Ask and ye shall receive!
