Boracay is a beautiful tropical island located at 200 miles (315km) south of Manila, the capital of the Philippines. This island resort is one of Philippines’ most popular tourist destinations because it is consistently voted by popular scuba diving and travel magazines as one of the best scuba diving destinations in the world.
There are many dive centers and operators in Boracay offering diving trips to top rated but hard to reach dive sites such as those in the Sibuyan Sea, Tablas, Romblon and Semirara. Close to Boracay are also excellent dive sites catering to divers of varying diving skills. Non diver will find snorkeling in Boracay an enriching experience because of its rich and diverse marine life near the beaches.
Friday’s Rock is a nearby rocky outcrop in Boracay’s western shore. Expect to see a variety of brilliant colored soft and hard corals, flittering butterfly fish, curious wrasses, darting damsels, playful blue tangs, ominous stingrays and snappers when diving around Friday’s rock. Hidden under the rocks, crevices and corals are big scorpion fishes and lion fishes.
There are two great dive sites near the main island of Boracay, known as Punta1 and Punta2. Punta 1 is a shallower dive of the two spots and is a drop off of about 24m (80ft) and Punta 2 starts at 30m (100ft) and goes way down to about 50m (170ft). These two dive spots are home to various species of garoupas, trigger fish, angel fish, sweet-lips, tuna, barracuda and the occasional reef shark.
At the southeast coast of Boracay is Crocodile Island (the island is named as such because of its shape). The island a very popular dive location and is a wall dive to about 25m (80ft) in depth. This dive site is also very rich in marine life so much so that many species of fish and corals make this location their permanent home.
Crocodile Island is also home to some poisonous banded sea snakes some of which are long as two meters (6.5ft) in length. Scuba divers need to be very careful of sea snakes because all sea snakes are poisonous and their bites lead to fatality.
Another great dive location near the main island is the Laurel Island. This dive site is for the more experienced and advanced divers because the undercurrent here can be very strong and because of this, drift diving is the main scuba diving activity here. Furthermore, the strong undercurrent encourages corals to open up their brightly colored yellow and orange polyps to feed on passing planktons. Divers can also find big colorful sponges and huge waving gorgonian sea fans here.
At northern tip of Boracay is a dive site known asYapak. This is a deep wall diving location starting at about 30m(95ft) and descending into the depth of 60m (190 ft). Once again, the undercurrent here can get pretty strong. Scuba divers will encounter larger pelagic fishes here, such as barracudas and various species of sharks.
Hammerhead sharks and giant manta rays are the main attractions when diving in Yapak. Other excellent dive sites around Boracay are Carabao (buffalo), Cathedral Cave, Buruanga, Black Rock and Dog Drift. Is it any wonder why Boracay is consistently rated as one of the best scuba diving site in the world?