I have long awaited to dive Anilao. One of the exciting parts of my site transfer was proximity to this dive haven. Over Holy Week, I finally made the trip. Anilao is surprisingly close to Calatagan, it only took two hours.
I stayed at Planet Dive, a top notch dive resort filled with great dive professionals. Technically, the resort is not in Anilao, but in Barangay San Teodoro. We chose Planet Dive because Max, my dive buddy, had set up one of his projects for NOAA on the house reef there.
Anilao is known for the macro dives and is a place of pilgrimage for underwater photographers. Which was very apparent on our first dive, a new site for muck diving just past Mainit Point on the southern tip of Mabini. There were a ton of dive boats there and when we descended it was loaded with divers, for good reason though, we saw some cool stuff: mimic octopus, frog fish, sea turtle, sea snake, frog fish, and pipefish! I had never been on such a crowded dive before, so many divers had their fancy underwater cameras and were gathered around the sea creatures capturing pictures like underwater tourists. It was so alarming and amusing. I really felt like a tourist, waiting in line for my chance to view the unique creatures of the sea.
Our second dive was Mainit point, a gentle drift dive with great visibility. We saw so many nudibranch, one was as big as my hand — I didn’t know they could get that big. Mainit point had really gorgeous corals and was a great second dive of the day. I returned to Mainint point on my last dive in Anilao, and it was a completely different dive. There was a strong current and we drifted quickly past the wall that was so spectacular on the first dive. We held onto the reef at the “high way” watching a sea turtle drift with us, and barracudas school around us. Our dive master said he saw a shark, but I am not sure if he was just making it up. He did bang his tank and point out to the depths, but with the strong current visibility was low and if there was anything there I didn’t see it.
The house reef at Planet Dive proved to be an awesome shore dive. Max and I went out to the twin rocks and made our way toward the barge. Our first mission was to find ARMS, the autonomous reef monitoring structures installed by NOAA last year. We found all six units! ARMS is a cool program that allows NOAA scientists to study the genetic biodiversity of the reef, learn more here: http://www.pifsc.noaa.gov/cred/survey_methods/arms/overview.php There was a lot to see at Twin Rocks, just past the barge we saw multiple GIANT Giant Clams and a sea turtle resting beneath an overhang of coral. Max and I emerged at sunset and enjoyed an evening with the dive staff at Planet Dive.
Our second day in Anilao, we got up early to catch a ride down to Anilao Camper where we boarded a dive boat and made our way to Verde Island. We dove at a site called San Agapito, a gorgeous dive site teaming with anthias around the healthy coral reef. The dive site, as you can see in the picture below, is a cluster of underwater seamounts. We dove past the coral garden (on the left of the drawing) and made our way to the pinnacle, where we encountered a strong current. Somewhere between the coral garden and pinnacle, we saw some eagle rays. I saw we liberally, I only saw one speed away after I saw a flash from one of the divers cameras. The report was that there were four of them.
Reefscape at San Agapito, Isla Verde Photo by Noel Guevara
San Agapito, Isla Verde Photo by Noel Guevara
After our dives at Verde Island we made our way back toward Mabini for lunch and our last dive. As we went to a small island for lunch, Balahibo ng Manok (Chicken Feather), we were waved down by some people in distress. A young man had been pulled out by the current and was struggling to get back to the shore. Our banka, loaded with hungry divers, raced off to rescue the man from the current. Our rescue was a success, one of our dive masters dove into the current with a leash to the boat and swam to the distressed swimmer. Good deed done for the day!
Our last dive of that trip was underwhelming, though anything would be after diving at Verde Island regarded as the center of the center of marine biodiversity. It was a site off the coast of Tingloy, the coral was nice, but it just didn’t team with fish the same way Verde Island did.
All nudibranch are hermaphrodites. When they mate, their gonopores protrude and they fertilize each other. Apparently it was mating season because there was a lot of this going on. ‘Tis the season, photo taken at East Saddle on Easter Sunday. Easter is filled with fertility symbols!
On our last day in Anilao, Max and I went on two more morning dives with the staff from Planet Dive. We dove a site between Tingloy and Sombrero Island called East Saddle. It was a nice dive with great visibility, lovely coral, so many nudibranch it was almost underwhelming except that we found some that were mating which was really exciting! We also encountered a friendly sea turtle. Our last dive was at Mainit Point, which I described earlier in this post.
Anilao was awesome and I cannot wait to get back to dive there again! I am busy this month but hopefully will find a moment to sneak away!
25 Comments
choose the best mattress company best matress New Zealand
That`s really interesting!
Photos are very beautiful, under water is very beautiful. Probably, when you find yourself under water you seem to fall into another world. I read a lot of essays https://papersbattle.com/best-essay-writing-services/ about the underwater world, I have always been interested in this topic. I myself, unfortunately, probably never dare to sink under the water.
Welcome to scamfighter. While we are here, students should not worry about essay writing services. Besides writing, we offer the best information on how to find the best essay writing site. The secret lies in customer reviews and ratings. Definitely, there are previous customers who have used our services. According to the experience we give them, they will not miss to say something. Reviews can be positive or negative and ratings too can be on a higher or a lower side. The best writing site carries the day with the highest ratings as well as positive reviews.
Great blog.
best online essay help UK
I very like it, thank you for sharing with us!
mini royale 2
Thanks for sharing your experience.
Thanks for sharing your experience. This is a really helpful article for divers looking to visit this beautiful site and enjoy the amazing deep water creatures. The Philippines has thousands of dive sites. These are spread out mostly around the Luzon and Visayas regions.
Care for some helpful law essays?-
Hello, I would like to thank you for sharing this interesting and amazing photos. I like them a lot. the material you have mentioned here will be useful for my capstone help.
An underwater diving mode where the diver uses a self-contained underwater breathing apparatus to breathe underwater which is Take My Class completely independent of surface supply. They may include additional extender cylinders, decompression gas.
I would like to thank you for the efforts you have made in writing this article.I would like to thank you for the efforts you have made in writing this article.
http://big8games.com/grindcraft-2/
This one just came through last week. Suita stayed for 3 days in a room with an excellent landscape of the ocean jacuzzi. create wiki page Service is very good and friendly crews. It’s a house riff, so we’ll focus on the first boat.
Anilao diving is the best thing I have ever done. The scenery under the sea is very beautiful with countless different types of fish.
boxnovel
Really good articles. Recommend good education paltform Truowl. Continue to progress together.Games Donkey
This post is probably where I got the most useful information for my story essay . Thanks for posting, maybe we can see more on this
Hello people!
I have got great news for people who have no time for writing their papers. I often hear that people struggle with the writing papers and don’t know what to do. In such case, I recommend applying to the essay writing service https://exclusivepapers.net that helped me do my term paper This service is very easy in usage and has a lot of different articles and tutorials which can help you with the writing papers.
Anilao was dead when I visited. I was actually the main individual remaining at my hotel. There is constrained decisions for eateries and bars there. Truth be told, where I stayed, there wasn’t anything close-by. I was really exhausted when out of the water. The plunging be that as it may, was incredible. Since I was the main individual at the plunge resort, I needed to employ a private watercraft with group and a DM for a few days. In any case, they were wonderful and custom fitted a plunge agenda dependent on my interests.prodissertationhelp.co.uk
Wow! These photos are great, so bright and beautiful. I like them so much and your story! I will share it on https://about.me/joshhewitt. This story should be readen by as many people as possible.
Control the grey tiny alien in run 3 free and run to the finish line!
Here you will be glad to find out one of the suitable option sync your settings by which you can smoothly overcome issues facing while synchronizing windows 10 settings. Try out for once surely you will be having all useful information.
Be patient with yourself if it does not take area Who Can Do My Homework immediately. however make that preference.
Photos are very beautiful, under water is very beautiful. Probably, when you find yourself under water you seem to fall into another world. I read a lot of essays https://papersbattle.com/best-essay-writing-services/ about the underwater world, I have always been interested in this topic. I myself, unfortunately, probably never dare to sink under the water.
Thanks. Really good articles. Recommend good education paltform Truowl. Continue to progress together.
good site thanks for sharing