If you ever find your self in the vicinity of Manila, The Philippines and feel the urge to get wet, I can strongly recommend a little trip to Puerto Galera located at the island of Mindoro.
Puerto Galera is a town based around diving with a dash of funny business on top. One of the main benefits with diving here is the vicinity to Manila. A comfy three or four hours after hitting Manila Ninoy Aquino International Airport you can be at your diving resort of choice at one of the three beaches at Puerto Galera.
There are a few dive sites that you definitely do not want to miss once you are here. Take a day trip to the Verde Island for perhaps the best diving in the area. The currents are known to be a bit tricky there and hence the name of the most famous dive spot at the Verde Island is "The washing machine". But as long as you go with an experienced dive guide he/she should be able to keep you safe from the nasty down currents and keep you out of harms way. The other spot to dive there is The Pinnacle. Here you dive next to a reef column of some sort around which you encounter quite a bit of pelagic creatures such as tunas, jacks and trevallies for examples. The pinnacle form a beautiful coral wall that starts at 60m and goes all the way up the surface. The visibility here is usually quite a bit better than around Puerto Galera. The Verde Islands is absolutely a must if you ever visit Puerto Galera.
Another dive spot that you cannot miss is the Canyons. Some people love it while others fear it. Fierce currents and depths between 25-35 meters can make this a challenging dive even for very experienced divers. We heard both horror stories and love stories regarding this dive spot from other guests at the resorts, but when we finally got a chance to dive the Canyons it was almost a bit too uneventful. Barely any currents at all. This is one of those dives where Nitrox really shines. You will almost double your bottom time zipping Nitrox instead of good old fashion air. Expect to see quite a bit of the same here as you will at the Verde Island.
A third dive spot that kind of grew on us is the sandy shallows close to the Giant Clams area. Part of this area falls neatly into the definition of "muck diving". Not much in terms of beautiful corals here in other words, but plenty of enormous clams and lots of bizarre creatures such as Flamboyant cuttle fish, Yellow scorpion fish, Fingered Dragonet and different kinds of Frog fish and Sea horses.
Since the Giant Clams area is very shallow (15m-20m) and easy to dive, this is an ideal place to get some really wicked dive times. On our final day of diving we managed to pull of a 67 minute dive on normal 12 liter air tanks. I believe that is my record.
Due to the number of weirdos we encountered here we found ourselves returning to the Giant Clams area many times during our stay at Puerto Galera. One moment that is still stuck on my retina is this funny Frogfish that came jumping towards us on the sandy bottom. Usually frog fishes don't move at all and are virtually impossible to spot due to their amazing ability to blend in with whatever background you can imagine. And when they do move they tend to walk or jump instead of swimming.
The tricky currents around Puerto Galera turns almost all dives into drift dives of one sort or another. The conditions here are such that a dive quickly can turn ugly if you are not careful. Even though our dive guides had thousands of dives here we ended up in a few dives that were complete disasters. Poor visibility and extreme currents makes you shift focus from finding funny creatures to just keeping track of your dive buddy and your dive guide. And sometimes you will have no choice but paddling like a crazy tuna on roids just to get out of the currents.
The water temperature has been at a steady 30 degrees centigrades lately which has had a very bad impact on the corals. There is coral bleaching pretty much everywhere. Some spots affected worse than others. As far as I understand, many of these corals might survive though if the water temperature could just drop a few degrees.
Puerto Galera has also been struck by a couple of really fierce typhoons the last decade something that has also taken its toll on the coral reefs. That said, you will still encounter the expected variety of reef inhabitants like Green sea turtle, Lion fishes, Moray eels and the usual lot of reef fishes.
Among the many dive sites in the immediate vicinity there is a handful of wrecks diveable by mere mortals. Some of the wrecks can only be reached by tech divers though. At the Sabang Wreck you can feed batfishes with bread crumbs from a bottle. That is a funny experience if you have not tried it before.
To wrap it up:
The great diving and the proximity to Manila has made Puerto Galera quite a magnet for local and foreign tourist alike. There are lots of bars and clubs for those who feel the urge to party. Most hardcore kick-ass dive sites on the planet are not only difficult and time consuming to reach, but when you finally do get there you will find that there is absolutely nothing to do except eat, sleep and dive. That is not the case with Puerto Galera. At the Sabang beach you can easily find more funny business than you can shake your diving stick at. So if you are looking for a bit of great diving mixed with some fun partying you will love Puerto Galera. If you are looking for pure and spectacular diving in the Philippines and don't mind the eat, sleep and dive kind of life, you would be better of diving the visayas (Negros, Cebu, Bohol etc.) though.
