Open Water Courses
The climate is warm and tropical, with the water temperature ranging from 25-31C/77-87F throughout the year. The average air temperature varies from 22-30C/71-86F.
Visibility is good (10-30m/32-98ft). November and December bring more rainfall, which may reduce visibility.
Currents are generally gentle.
What to see
There are many fish, such as dwarf gobies, mandarinfish, numerous nudibranchs, big fish like black and white snapper, Napoleon wrasses, harlequin sweetlips, barracudas, trevallies, and steephead parrotfish. From November to May, whale sharks can be spotted.
Padre Burgos, located in the province of Southern Leyte, is a famous scuba diving destination. The closest airport is in Ormoc, that is located in 155 km. In recent years, several Marine Protected Areas have been established nearby, such as the Santa Sofia (great for soft corals) and Tangkaan (amazing wall dive with a huge variety of fish) marine sanctuaries. Τhe underwater beauty boasts a variety of extremely healthy and undamaged hard and soft corals, large barrel sponges, walls, steep drop-offs, caves, and even a couple of wrecks. There are lots of dive sites for all diver levels (depths vary from 6-40m/19-131ft).
Some of the best are Tangkaan point/Heaven's Gate, Max Climax Wall, Peter's Mound, Napantao, and Padre Burgos Pier. Also Ampo Reef is an interesting dive site, where the amazing colors of hard coral (smooth, dull brown Porites, knobby bright-green Diploastrea heliopora, spiky pink and blue Acropora) hide thousands of crabs and gobies. Other amazing diving spots located nearby are the islands of Limasawa and Panaon.