In August and September 2023 I did a three week long dive trip to the Philippines with my friend John. We spent the first week at Anilao staying at Buceo Anilao Dive Resort and the next two weeks at Sabang (Puerto Galera). A t Sabang, we stayed at Capt'n Greggs and dived with them as well.

There are a dozen or more dive sites located within 10 minutes run from Capt'n Greggs.

Unfortunately we had a Super Typhoon hit the northern Philippines when we were at Anilao and lost some days diving there. We were also delayed a day in getting to Sabang.

Sabang Bay West is located in the main bay opposite all the dive operations and to the left of the middle of the bay. It is a very short run from the resort. A GPS mark for the starting spot for the dive site is 13° 31' 20.359"N 120° 58' 28.589"E (using WGS84 as the datum). The dive goes to the west and then to the south.

A satellite photo from Google Earth of Sabang Bay. This dive started at the red mark and went west and then south.

The site is only a few hundred metres from the resort to the north-west. You drop to the bottom in about 7 metres and then head north-west down the slight slope to 16 metres. The bottom is sand with lots of dead coral bits and some sponges and the like. There are also some coral outcrops here and there.

We go a bit deeper to 20 and then 22 metres. Along the way there are some boat moorings, mostly old and abandoned. Eventually, after 35 minutes we come to tow dumped aluminium boats. These are both upsidedown and about 7 to 8 metres long and appear to be mostly undamaged.

A barrel sponge with featherstars on it	One of the two wrecked boats
A starfish with heaps of flatworms on it	A close up of one of the flatworms

After this we turn around and head back more to the south or south-west. We very gradually get shallower. Along the way we see many nudibranchs, some moray eels, a few mantis shrimps and a large school of silverfish, a bit like yellowtail that we get in Sydney. I also see a starfish which has a lot of flatworms on it (see photos above). I have seen these flatworms before on this trip, but they were on a sea cucumber. Never seen them before this trip though.

A very colourful nudibranch	A large pufferfish

After about another 20 minutes of slow swimming, we end up in six metres where we do our safety stop. We see quite a few anemones with anemonefish (clownfish) and I get some good photographs. There are a few different species too and different sizes. There are more nudibranchs here too and it is quite nice.

This was a good dive. Water temperature was 28C in September and the visibility was about 10 metres.

MORE PHOTOS

Lots of these nudibranchs around	Nudibranch egg ribbon
A turretfish	A moray eel
An anemonefish (clownfish) in an anemone	Another anemonefish