Cabilao Island Diving

Scuba diving in Cabilao Island

Cabilao Island, south west of Pangangan Island lies in the Bohol Strait and has a great diversity of dive sites that suit divers of different skills and expertise. More than 800 species of underwater life like corals, shells of different sizes as well as sea snakes, barracudas, large groupers, napoleon wrasses and snappers inhabit the dive sites. Also it is home to hammerhead sharks in deeper waters more suited for the experienced diver.

Always dive according to your level of training.
Never enter the water without checking with Cabilao Island 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: 32°C (89° F).
Average Water surface temperature: From 26°C to 30°C (78° F to 86°F).
Visibility often averaging: From 65 to 131 feet (20 to 40 meters).
Best time to dive is from November to June.
Possible to dive all year round.

Cabilao Island is surrounded by a reef that's intact and teeming with marine life. This makes it very popular with both scuba divers ans snorkelers. The dive sites are ideal for both novices and more experienced divers; depths and directions are shown on the Cabilao Island diving map. There's great visibility sometimes reaching 40 metres and diving is possible year round because of the pleasant water temperatures averaging 28 degrees.

You can see beautiful walls covered with lots of colorful soft and hard corals in Cabilao's reef sites; some of these walls can reach from 164 to 295 feet (50 to 90) meters down. Some walls are covered in gorgonian sea fans and black coral and you may see lots of barracudas, nudibranchs, frogfishes and even turtles. A wide variety of sea life inhabits these beautiful reefs like scorpion fish, tunas, frogfish and nudibranchs. Encounters with the pygmy seahorse that live on gorgonian sea fan are not rare. There are many overhangs and small caves that you will come across along the way down while you dive these walls. On some occasions you may see big fish like the white- and black tipped reef shark, thresher and hammerhead sharks and schools of barracudas in dive sites like the Shark-Point. The visibility is usually good because of the sandy bottom. Underwater photographers will not be disappointed and the night dives are spectacular.

There's a protected underwater area, the Sanctuary that has many caves and overhangs. This is a spectacular dive because of the great view and among the marine life you will encounter is snappers, groupers, sea snakes and barracudas only to mention a few. There are hard and table corals as well as overhangs and caves. Look out for baby sharks resting during the day in the caves.

The north eastern end of Cabilao Island has lots of caves and crevices. There's a drop off here which goes to a good 328 feet (100 meters). In the shallower part there's a sea grass meadow, impressive coral formations as well as sea snakes, stonefish and harlequin ghost pipefish. However, diving here must be planned taking into consideration the weather and current conditions. The currents can be pretty strong sometimes which provide great dives for drift diving.