Diving the Philippines in 14 days: wrecks, threshers and black sand

Two things this itinerary does that most published Philippine dive routes do not. It puts a non-diving transit day between each region rather than pretending the transfers are quick, because they are not. And it ends your last dive twenty-four hours before you fly, which is not optional and which is the most common thing we have to fix in a plan somebody else built.

Planned by: Daniella Eitan, our groups and business manager, with our own office in Manila.

Who it suits: certified divers, ideally Advanced with around thirty logged dives. The Coron wrecks and Monad Shoal both reward experience. Non-diving partners will be happier on our classic route.

Day by day

Day 1: Arrive in Manila. Airport transfer, hotel in Makati. Nothing scheduled.

Day 2: Manila to Coron. A morning flight to Busuanga, about an hour, then a road transfer of forty minutes to Coron town. Afternoon to sort gear and paperwork, and either a shallow check dive or the Maquinit saltwater hot springs, which is the correct thing to do on an arrival afternoon.

Day 3: The deep wrecks. Irako and Okikawa Maru. Irako is the best-preserved wreck in the bay and sits deep enough that it is a nitrox and decompression-awareness dive rather than a casual one. Two dives, long surface interval, back mid-afternoon.

Day 4: The penetrable wrecks. Olympia Maru and Morazan Maru, both shallower, both swimmable through with a torch and a guide, and both easier to enjoy than Irako. Third dive at Barracuda Lake in the afternoon, which is a freshwater and saltwater layered lake inside a limestone crater where the water temperature rises to around 100F (38C) at the thermocline. It is not a reef and it is one of the strangest dives in Asia.

Day 5: Coron, your choice. Either a third wreck day out to Kogyo Maru and the Skeleton wreck, or the southern reefs and Kayangan Lake, which is the day your camera will thank you for. We ask you which on the boat.

Day 6: Coron to Cebu. A transit day and a surface interval at the same time. There is no useful direct routing, so this is a connection through Manila or Cebu with a day consumed either way. No diving. Overnight in Cebu City.

Day 7: Cebu to Malapascua. North by road to Maya, about four hours, then a short bangka crossing. Afternoon check dive at Lighthouse, and if you stay in past sunset, the mandarinfish come out. Three nights on the island.

Day 8: Monad Shoal, first attempt. Boat at half past four in the morning. You are on the plateau at around 25 to 30 metres before the light comes, watching cleaner wrasse stations, and the threshers come up from the deep to be cleaned. It is cold, dark and short, and it is one of the few places on earth where this is reliable rather than lucky. Second dive at Gato Island, a tunnel through a small island with white-tip reef sharks sleeping in it.

Day 9: Monad Shoal, second attempt. Because one dawn dive is a coin toss and two is a plan. Sightings are good but not guaranteed, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling. Afternoon at Kimud Shoal or Chocolate Island.

Day 10: Malapascua to Dauin. The longest transfer in the trip and the reason we do not dive today: crossing, four hours south to Cebu City, a short flight to Dumaguete and half an hour to the Dauin coast. Three nights. Your document has the timings; do not plan anything else on this day.

Day 11: Apo Island. A forty-minute crossing to one of the oldest community-managed marine sanctuaries in the country, and the reason it works: green turtles in numbers, a genuinely healthy wall at Rock Point and Chapel, and a fish population that has been protected since the 1980s. Two dives, plus a third on the way back if the current cooperates.

Day 12: Dauin black sand. The opposite kind of diving and the reason serious photographers come to the Philippines. Muck sites off a volcanic beach: frogfish, mimic octopus, blue-ringed octopus, nudibranchs, seahorses. Two morning dives, one early-afternoon dive, and then you stop. Your last dive is out of the water by two o’clock, because you fly tomorrow.

Day 13: Dumaguete to Manila. A late-afternoon flight, deliberately, so that you clear a full twenty-four hours since your last dive. Evening in Manila.

Day 14: Departure.

What is included

Accommodation with breakfast, all internal flights and land and boat transfers, all diving as listed with tanks, weights and guides at a maximum of four divers to one guide, nitrox where the site calls for it, marine park and sanctuary fees, the Monad Shoal dawn boats, a full dive briefing pack before you fly, a day-by-day document with transfer timings, and a WhatsApp group with our Manila office for the duration.

Not included: equipment rental if you are not bringing your own, which we quote separately, and certification courses.

What we would change, and when

• Want Tubbataha? Then this is a different trip. The Sulu Sea reefs are liveaboard only, roughly ten hours out of Puerto Princesa, and the season is mid-March to mid-June. A week aboard starts around 3,000 dollars a person. It is the best diving in the country by a distance and it is worth planning a whole trip around rather than bolting on.
• Macro photographer? We would swap Coron for Anilao, three hours by road from Manila, which has the best nudibranch and blackwater diving in Asia and saves you an internal flight.
• Fewer than thirty dives? We drop Irako and the deep Coron wrecks and add Moalboal instead, where the sardine shoal sits a short swim from the shore and the diving is easy.
• Whale sharks? Not at Oslob, where they are fed daily to keep them in the bay and where we do not send our travellers. Donsol in Sorsogon, roughly December to May, where they are found rather than baited. It is a snorkel rather than a dive and it needs three days.

Related

• The Philippines: the complete guide
• Palawan and Siargao, 14 days
• Deep Philippines, 21 days