Diving off Balicasag Island
Summary
For so many divers its all about seeing a specific thing, like certain sharks, a giant coral wall, or a cave, but sometimes you just want a shallow dive along a beautiful reef with good visibility and in a chilled out tropical beach place. Balicasag Island, just off Panglao, is the later. Very nice spot
Top tips:
- Dive Sites – we dived the Royal Garden, with a max depth of around 25m and great for seeing turtles, and Rudy’s Rock, with a similar max depth and a rock wall to explore
- Stay on Pangalao Island – Tagbilaran didn’t look too appealing. Aim instead to stay on Pangalao Island. We splurged a bit and stayed at the South Palms Resort, which was great and would recommend
- Bohol – if in the surrounding area, be sure to explore the Chocolate Hills in the centre of Bohol by quad bike and see the Tarsiers, the world’s smallest primate – see Quad-biking through the Bohol Chocolate hills for further tips on this experience
- Getting to Bohol from Cebu City is relatively straightforward, but its not a bad idea to ask your hotel / hostel to help you with getting the ferry tickets you want
- See if you can visit Malapascua Island – you’ll most likely be flying into Cebu. If so, and you are a diver, be sure to head up to one of the other idyllic paradises of Malapascua Island ,which is the only place in the world you can dive with Thresher Sharks – see Diving with Thresher Sharks at Malapascua Island for further tips on this experience
highlights
#1 The rock wall of Rudy's Rock
#2 Clear, pleasant water for diving all along the Royal Garden
#3 Staying in some of the beautiful spots on Pangalao Island
Experiences nearby
The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences
Other Great Diving Experiences
Score Detail
Background - how many times have you asked someone what a travel experience was like and the response was "amazing" or "awesome"? That response is nice to know, but it makes it hard to differentiate that experience compared to others. That is exactly what these scores are trying to do - differentiate the experience by giving a score out of 10 based on 6 categories and then giving an overall experience score
This overall experience score is calculated by: take the highest of the "Culture" or "Nature" score (1-10) + "Fun factor" (1-10) + "Avoiding the crowds" (1-10) + highest of the "Unique" or "World Famous score" (1-10). Then convert into a score out of 100
Extra detail - the logic being that I find all of the 6 individual scores important, but I don't want to mark an experience down just because it doesn't cover both "Culture" and "Nature", or because it isn't both "World Famous" and "Unique". Take the examples of Safari in The Serengeti and walking through Rome - they both appeal at opposite ends of the nature / culture spectrum, and you can have a fantastic time without needing to appeal to both sides. So, their overall scores aren't penalized for their lack of one or the other, and I've done the same for "World Famous" vs "Unique". But . . . I do think that the "Fun factor" of an experience is important, irrelevant of other factors, and so is "Avoiding the Crowds" (or where there are crowds that add to the experience). So, both of these scores are standalone