Anilao is a Photographers Dream

Anilao is a Dream Spot. When you arrive in Anilao, you will find the marine sanctuary has an incredible diversity of healthy hard and soft reefs, a great variety of small and big fish, and unexpected critters & nudibranchs turning up around every corner. If you love underwater photography, exploring the marine life, or want to learn to Scuba Dive you will quickly fall in love with Anilao.

Anilao is a Marine Protected Sanctuary located an easy 3 hour drive from Manila International Airport. If you are coming from Batangas Port is it about 45 minutes. It is the best and most popular spot for underwater macro photography in the Philippines and ranked in the top 3 macro scuba diving places in the world.

Here you will easily find vibrant and colourful Nudibranchs and a huge variety of Nudibranchs and Critters like Scorpionfish, Crabs, Pipefish, Seahorses, Shrimps and Cuttlefish. The reefs are very healthy at both shallow and deep depths. It is not rare to observe the rather strange looking wonderpus Hairy Frogfish, Blue-Ringed Octopus as well as Mimic Octopus and Rhinopias. Mantis Shrimp, several species of Gobies and Bobbit Worms are also common encounters.

Reef Sharks can be spotted in dive sites like Mainit Point and when diving in Anilao you can also observe Pelagic fishes such as Trevallies, Barracudas and Jacks.

The best place for muck diving is Secret Bay also known as Mainit Muck. This is also a great spot for an exhilirating night dive ;-).

You can expect longer dive times with many of the dive sites being on the shallow side and the reefs are very healthy and thriving great for both scuba diving photographers and snorklers. There is great hard and soft corals around for all divers and snorklers to enjoy.

There are over 50 dives sites reachable from Anilao Backpackers along with the Maricaban Island, Sombrero Island, Mapating and Cathedral. We also make day trips to Verde Island.

Anilao is an ideal place to learn for first timers and for improving your Scuba Diving skills.

Snorkling is easy right from in front of our hotel with our resident turtle that can be often or observed sometimes just from our water front restuarant.

We are open year round to divers from around the world and weekend get awayers from Manila.

The main diving seasons in Anilao from November to August and the peak scuba diving season in Anilao is in April and May. The water can get a tad bit cooler in January and February to around 22-24 celcious.