Diving Guide to the Philippines 2015

(Barry) #1

  1. North Point
    Icons:
    Location: North tip of Malapascua
    Depth: 18-70 ft. (5-22m)


This dive requires roughly a five-
minute boat ride from Bounty
Beach and is an interesting dive site
with varied terrain and a variety of
sea creatures to see. A series of
ridges lead to sandy plains. The
ridges are undercut and covered in
brilliant soft corals. There is also a
large boulder near the mooring
adorned in brilliant orange soft
coral and a coral garden of leather
corals that stretches over a wide
area.
As it is at the point, when the tide
is changing, the corals open up in


the current to feed and are really
beautiful. It is completely different
at slack tide. In the current, the
beautiful soft coral really opens up
and the reef is more colorful. But
the current is strong and it’s a bit of
work getting to the habitats of some
of the varied small marine life
including giant and clown frogfish
found in many colors, fire urchins
with their commensal crabs or
shrimp, nudibranchs and a couple
of sea fans with pygmy seahorses.
Whether the current is running or
not, end the dive at the large coral
garden. Puffers rest in the huge
leather corals and the healthy reef
stretches for a nice swim or drift up
into the shallows for a deco stop.
You may find yourself drifting at
deco here. Follow the guide and the
sausage and look for some big
jellyfish that sometimes blow into
the area and have small jacks
hiding in their tentacles. People can
snorkel here as well.

56) Lapus Pinnacle
Icons:
Location: East of Malapascua
Depth: 40-80 ft. (12-24m)

Small enough to circumnavigate
in one dive, this current-fed
pinnacle has some mini walls
covered in beautiful soft corals,
wire and whip corals and small
fans. The cracks and crevices along

Yellow spotted gobies
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