Diving and staying in Sipalay

[Haiawata]

Hi fellow divers-
Can you share your experience on diving and staying in Sipalay? What is diving look like, reefs, life? what is after-dive time looks like? Any land trips worth to consider?

Thanks for any input.
Have good bubbles!

 

[Centrals]

1. Dived and stayed at Artistic Diving but the diving operation is suspended at the moment.
2. Land trips? No idea.
3. Healthy reef and couple of nice wrecks(deep).
4. Social life? Arrange it yourself. Tourists do not make it there very often because of isolation.

 

[Luko]

Dived with Easy diving, good accoms that is if you're OK with stairs, nice beach, good restaurant, Swiss-german owned dive operation (think moustached guys in their late 40's wearing speedos), good organization (everyone is on time).
Shallow reefs are not that interesting to me.
Best dives are deep in front of the resorts 35-40m (Da West, MarcoPolo), teeming with reef fish schools.

 

[Haiawata]

Thanks Luke. You painted the picture. Photos also very nice and explanatory.

 

[Haiawata]

1. Dived and stayed at Artistic Diving but the diving operation is suspended at the moment.
2. Land trips? No idea.
3. Healthy reef and couple of nice wrecks(deep).
4. Social life? Arrange it yourself. Tourists do not make it there very often because of isolation.

Ok, the note taken.

 

[dirtfarmer]

Sipalay is my favoite spot in the PI for beach time with my wife and doing a bit of diving. The diving can be pretty good and there is a couple good muck sites too. Mad Max is an abandoned pier with a muck bottom and great growth on the pilings, always a great dive.
My wife and I stay at Takatuka resort which has very interesting themed rooms. It's really a site to see. The best thing about the resort is the food. Good food in the PI can be hard to find but at Takatuka we can spend two weeks and love it all, the menu has cuisine from all over the world and it's all excellent. Takatuka is located on Sugar beach which is a really nice beach with great sunsets and swimming conditions and a few resorts.
Sipalay is a bit of a journey to get to, you can go with public transport or private driver. We've done both and prefer private driver from Bacalod.

Would I go just for the diving? Probably not, unless your just seeing one of the many dive spots the PI has to offer, we go there after we've been in other dive locations ( my wife is a non-diver) and it's time to chill on the beach instead of diving 3x day. We both get to enjoy great food, a great beach I can get some dives in when I get antsy.

 

[Haiawata]

Sipalay is my favoite spot in the PI for beach time with my wife and doing a bit of diving. The diving can be pretty good and there is a couple good muck sites too. Mad Max is an abandoned pier with a muck bottom and great growth on the pilings, always a great dive.
My wife and I stay at Takatuka resort which has very interesting themed rooms. It's really a site to see. The best thing about the resort is the food. Good food in the PI can be hard to find but at Takatuka we can spend two weeks and love it all, the menu has cuisine from all over the world and it's all excellent. Takatuka is located on Sugar beach which is a really nice beach with great sunsets and swimming conditions and a few resorts.
Sipalay is a bit of a journey to get to, you can go with public transport or private driver. We've done both and prefer private driver from Bacalod.

Would I go just for the diving? Probably not, unless your just seeing one of the many dive spots the PI has to offer, we go there after we've been in other dive locations ( my wife is a non-diver) and it's time to chill on the beach instead of diving 3x day. We both get to enjoy great food, a great beach I can get some dives in when I get antsy.

Thank you!