Bohol Island Diving

Scuba diving in Bohol Island

Always dive according to your level of training.
Never enter the water without checking with Bohol diving centers for safety, additional information, level required for each dive site and without being accompanied by a professional.
All the information provided is purely informative for our readers and shouldn't be used as is to plan your immersion.

Average annual temperature: 27°C (82° F).
Average Water surface temperature: 25°C and 30°C (77° F and 86° F).
Visibility often averaging: Visibility is between 10 and 40 feet (3 to 12 meters).
Possible to dive all year round.

Bohol Islands offer some of the richest diversity of dive sites in the Philippines. Bohol boasts some great walls and nice caves. Furthermore the crystal clear waters make visibility for diving good and the white sandy beaches attract lots of snorkelers and other holiday makers. Resident dolphins and pilot whales can also be viewed from the distance. Whales watching season is during the months March to June. December or January is when you can find hammerhead sharks and sometimes whale sharks; see some unique pictures of the aqua life in the Philippines diving photo gallery.

To the north of Bohol you will find the only double barrier reef in the Philippines. It is a great reef and home to a wide variety of sea life. Balicasag Island is where you can find interesting dive sites with vertical walls. The depth range here can reach 30 to 165 feet (9 to 50 meters) deep, see location and depths on the Bohol diving map. Don't miss swimming through its black coral forests. You can see the black coral growth from a depth of 98 to 146 feet (30 to 50 meters) deep. Many beautiful marine lives are represented in this area hard coral, sponges and gorgonians as well as jacks, mackerel, barracudas, sea fans, lionfish, scorpion fish and other colored fishes. As for cave diving fans there are beautiful caves and cavers in Balicasag Island dive sites and it is home to clown fishes along with many other marine lives. On the eastern side of the island there is a drop off at a depth ranging from 65 to 82 feet (20-25 meters). While Descending the wall enjoy watching turtle, cushion stars and a profusion of feather stars lying outside the caves as well as a vast variety of reef fish .

Pamilacan Island, Bohol is among the best dive sites of the Philippines another great spot with lots of dive sites with a wide range of depth and marine lives. It is known for it's big whales that they call "Sanga" and also large pelagic fish that's abundant. Depths in this area vary from 26 to 114 feet (8 to 35 meters) and there are strong currents which make great drift dives. The reef is covered with many coral heads and soft corals you can see coral strings, napoleon wrasse, barracudas, batfish and in some occasion manta rays. This site is recommended for advanced divers as the currents can be pretty strong.

There's a popularly dived wall, locally refer to as the lighthouse, that goes down to 82 feet (25 meters) then at 98 feet (30 meters) there is a plateau followed by another wall. There's a lot of marine life here, both big and small. You will encounter barracuda, schools of jackfish, lots of nudibranches, and crabs just to mention a few. However the biggest attraction is probably the hammerhead and white-tipped reef sharks which can be seen in the winter season, from December to April. Beware, the currents are strong here.