Pristine Reefs of Southern Mindanao

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World Wide Diver

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Location
Davao, but like General Santos and Davao Oriental
# of dives
This thread is to promote the best and lesser known pristine reefs and marine life of Southern Mindanao.
After 3 years diving many areas in Southern Mindanao, we consider that the best reefs here lie in the area stretching from the city of General Santos to the border of Palimbang (West of General Santos please see the attachments for area orientation). Coral and coral life has been able to flourish relatively unhindered along this part of the coastline. This is because;
- The population density is low, and settlers in the area are farmers rather than fishermen;
- Skilled fishermen are often offshore hand-lining yellow fin tuna;
- Fishermen respect their areas and tend to hand line fish in low volumes to feed their families;
- People are protective of their territory and discourage others from fishing in their waters;
- The Governor of Sarangani province is a diver who has introduced laws to protect reefs and marine life. Local officials, locals and the police work together to effectively enforce these laws;
- The continental shelf drops quickly to over 4000 meters just offshore next stop is Indonesia (closest islands are 100 miles away);
- This deep water provides a good, clean nutrient rich environment which has a stable year-round temperature between 27 and 28.5 degrees. This prevents coral bleaching and supports excellent marine life attracting large pelagics; and
- The area is Typhoon-free and rarely experiences bad weather ËÕhere are 330+ good dive days per year .
Though this area still remains unknown to all but a handful of local divers, few overseas divers have already dived here including some members of this board (hi to Tom and Dustin:)).
How to Dive. These are two dive operators in the area, Cambridge Dive Center (formally Tuna City Scuba Center) www.tunadive.com and South Point Divers www.southpointdivers.ph. Cambridge dive center is set within 2 hectares of tropical gardens in General Santos. South Point is located at Tampuan with superb views across Sarangani Bay. Both operators can arrange diving at Kamanga and local reefs (please see the next post).
Diving the reefs along the coast is a mini day expedition along the coastal road (excellent road) then meeting the dive boat. The coastal scenery is beautiful mountains and white sand beaches. Cambridge dive centre arranges this as a norm for experienced divers. The new reef discovered is known only to Cambridge Dive Center. It has only been dived upon 20 times to date.
Security. Much of what is written about security issues in Mindanao applies to small areas well away from the coast. This area experiences very few problems compared to places anywhere in the World. Indeed, people are extremely hospitable and pleased to see and meet visitors, and you can still feel like the first person to discover the area.
Posts to follow for the Kamanga Marine Protected Area and coastal and offshore diving along the coast. We hope that this is useful to those seeking new and pristine areas off the beaten track.
 

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A 140 hectare Marine Protected Area established in 2006 following the Apo Island MPA model, Kamanga MPA is a zero take area and has been lovingly cared for by local divers, especially Mr John Heitz and Mr Chris Dearne. The MPA has benefitted from the Tuna City Reef Dome project (Project Aware and private sponsorship) and has had crown of thorn starfish removed rigorously for over three years.

The area partly lies within the caldera of a huge long-extinct volcano and has exceptionally good flow of nutrient-rich water from the deep. What makes this area special are excellent drop-offs just 100 meters or less from the shore - the walls are vertical and drop to over 500 meters.

There are some of the best wall dives in SE Asia, comparable to Bunaken, Indonesia (very close to this place as the crow flies). Common here are napoleon wrasse, eagle ray, jacks, unicorn fish, trigger fish, large schools of butterfly fish, sweetlips, snapper, turtle, barracuda, bumpheads and spadefish. Fans and corals are pristine.

Visibility is best in the morning and can reach 30 meters plus at any time of the year. The field of pink sea fans on Sand Bar is unique to any place we dived beautiful and hardly seen/photographed by divers. Note that currents can be strong and switch quickly from left to right and from up to down. This is what draws in all the action.

Rocky Beach has some of the best fringing corals anywhere. The acropora corals are prolific and coral cover is virtually 100% on the shallow reef shelves. There are further shelves which are coated with hard and soft pristine coral with a plethora of marine life.

The area is easily accessible from General Santos (35 minutes) by road and facilities are good for diving. South Point Divers are located on a cliff side overlooking the marine park and there is good boat access from the beach at Tampuan. The size of this MPA and quality of diving can easily fill a 1-2 weeks dive itinerary.

Please see attached photos - more to follow:-
 

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A few more photographs attached.
 

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This area has many prime dive sites which have hardly been dived.

The Marine Protected Area at Tuka (near Kiamba) has superb table corals and excellent marine life including napoleons, many bumpheads, turtle, etc. The local Barangay Captain and residents take reef protection seriously in this area including protecting the reefs that lie outside the MPA.

The reefs around Maitum are fabulous and are support incredible numbers of reef fish. These in include shark, unicorn fish, trevally, rays, barracuda, snapper and sweetlips + fuseliers, bannerfish, butterfly fish, angelfish, etc, etc. Maitum is regarded by knowledgeable divers in Mindanao as one of the best areas in SE Asia and they have travelled a lot.

Other reefs include a newly found large offshore reef with ancient and unique coral and marine life as good as anywhere in the World. This includes several species of shark (white tip, grey reef shark and black tip). Huge giant trevally patrol the reef amongst hundreds of snapper and sweetlips. Everything is super-sized here, including territorial reef predators such as cuttlefish and lionfish. We place this reef in the top three sites anywhere we have ever dived consistently great dives in usually clear blue water. Though we have witnessed eagle ray and napoleons here, the locals tell us that there are devil rays and mantas also. That said, less than 30 dives have been made so far and much of the reef remains to be explored. Interestingly, this is the only place where we have ever been followed to the surface by grey reef shark!!:shocked2:

Yet to be dived upon are ship wrecks and many other reefs, opening up great opportunities for exploration diving.

We hope that you find this useful.
More photos to follow:-
 

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Some more photographs attached.
 

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Last few images.

Hope you enjoy.
 

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Very much looking forward to it later this month! :wink:
 
Very nice :)
 

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