Michael McFadyen's Scuba Diving - Twin Rocks, Philippines
In August 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.
There are dozens of dive sites located within 20 minutes run from the resort.
Unfortunately we had a Super Typhoon hit the northern Philippines when we were there, so the Coast Guard banned all boats and diving later in the week. This dive site was one we visited on the second day.
Twin Rocks is located only 500 metres from the resort. A GPS mark for the dive spot is 13° 41' 24.950" N 120° 53' 22.146" E (using WGS84 as the datum).
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A satellite photo from Google Earth that shows the location of the dive site at top and Buceo Anilao Resort at bottom |
The dive boat anchors a short distance off the beach to the south-east of the actual site. The site consists of two coral bommies that come up from 12 metres to near the surface. The bottom is many sand except for the bommies and some outcrops of coral. The bottom has sea whips, soft corals, and many featherstars and some sponges.
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A sea whip shrimp | Another sea whip shrimp |
We dropped to the bottom and went straight to 18 metres and then headed north-west towards the bommies. We went a bit deeper to 21 and then 23 metres. As we go along there are plenty of nudibranchs, seawhip gobies and shrimp, mantis shrimps, octopus and more.
Further on there is a large light pink gorgonia. When we check it out, the guide finds a larger pygmy sea horse and I then find another one. Luckily I get good photos of these ones! There are also saw some acoel flatworms on a blue sea star. I had never seen them before.
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One of the pygmy sea horses | The other pygmy sea horses |
From the gorgonia we gradually ascend to 15 metres and then eventually to 5 meters. We go past the bommies. before returning back towards the boat. There is a juvenile ribbon eel near the boat. A really nice dive. Water temperature was 30C in August and the visibility about 15 metres.
MORE PHOTOS
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A squat lobster on a sea whip | A very colourful nudibranch |
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A starfish with the acoel flatworm on it | The acoel flatworm |
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A nudibranch | Another nudibranch |
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Some of the featherstars | A tiny goby that was very hard to photograph |
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