LIVEABOARD DIVING IN Balicasag
Balicasag Island is located in the southern Bohol Sea, near the Island of Panglao. The closest airport is in Tagbilaran from where you get to Balicasag by sea. Balicasag is an almost circular island with crystal clear waters and a snow white beach surrounding the island. It is a really beautiful small island also declared as Marine Sanctuary. Balicasag has a diameter of about 600m/1969ft and lies about 20 minutes by boat from Alona Beach. The island has only one bungalow resort with about 20 simple bungalows in native style. Next to the resort, there are about 100 local families living on the island. Balicasag is especially popular among the diving community. Dive boats from Alona Beach come here every day to enjoy the wall dives around Balicasag Island. The reef is about 50m/164ft from the beach and falls straight down to about 50m/164ft deep. There are a few caves and caverns under the water and a huge forest of black corals. Balicasag Island has one of the most diverse marine ecosystems in the world.
This Island has four main dive sites. The first is the Black Forest. With green sea turtles and schools of barracuda and jacks, the Black Forest is one of the most bio-diverse and vibrant sites in the Philippines. The Black Forest has a hard coral slope going down to 40m/131ft where divers can find a colony of garden eels. This is a great site for a drift dive. The second is Divers' Heaven. There is a vertical drop off from 6m/20ft to 40m/131ft. Like most of the island, hard corals are dominating the shallow areas. Divers can encounter such spectacular species as Napoleon wrasse, scorpion fish and angelfish. The third is Cathedral Wall which is truly divine. Turtles, reef fish, triggerfish, puffer fish, whip corals, soft corals and hard corals can be seen there. And the last one is Baliscasag Sanctuary which is the protected area of Balicasag Island. The drop off at this site runs from 4m/13ft to 60m/197ft. There are also a few small caverns for divers to explore.