Apo Reef

Apo Reef

The second largest continuous coral reef in the world offers near unlimited diving adventures. From very shallow dives over the top of the reef, teeming with fish life, to very deep descents to the bottom of the walls with chances of shark encounters, Apo Reef has it all!. The area is especially famous for the clarity of the water. Being far away from any rivers or other sources that cause poor visibility, Apo often truly offers unbelievable views. Imagine hovering on your safety stop at 5m and still being able to see the sleeping white-tip shark on the sandy bottom at 50m and you get the picture!
The area consist of three small to tiny islands, only one of them - Apo Island - inhabited by a few rangers who guard this jewel in the open ocean. The vast outer reef area is roughly circular shaped and it has a channel, which provides safe anchorage and also divides it into a northern and a southern part.

Out of the many dive sites we just picked some to give you an idea what to expect:

 

Apo Island Southeast Point | Apo Island North Wall | Apo Island East Side | Menor Island | Apo 29    
Apo South | Apo East and North | Apo Northwest | Hunter's Rock | Merope Rock    

 

Apo Island Southeast Point

Quite often this will be your introduction to diving on Apo Reef, simply because there are two mooring buoys positioned on the edge of the drop off and in an ideal location. The current often tends to split here and enables drift dives in either westerly or easterly directions, you just need to swim a couple of meters from the mooring line to the drop off and the ride begins. It pays to be a bit patient though and to just hang around in the area for a while. Fish love this mix of currents and tend to be very busy with feeding, especially in the early hours of the morning. Sooner or later the current will take you smoothly away and then you can experience a very lazy drift dive, ideally along the reefs edge at around 15m. Big schools of jacks, sweetlips and surgeonfish, tunas, whitetip sharks, turtles and many more species are all part of the show.		 Shark

Every dive here is different from the other and besides the usual reef inhabitants you should be ready for surprise visits from the occasional manta, mobula, blacktip or grey reef sharks. Don’t worry about swimming back to Rags II though – she will be there waiting for you when you ascend at the end of your dive.

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Reef

Apo Island North Wall

This surely is another great spot! On the surface you will always see the swell breaking over the shallowest part of the reef, nothing to worry about though, because the boat will drop you right on the outer edge of the reef. The wall here goes down very deep and while it is usually not necessary to dive deep at Apo, on this wall you might want to have a look. From December to March, when the water is a bit cooler, there is a good chance to see Hammerhead sharks. Adult grey reef sharks also love this steep wall, but be careful - it is very easy to go too deep here. The Hammerheads tend to stay a good distance away from the wall and usually escape into the abyss when they spot you, so be careful following them, unless you planned this dive on Trimix.

When your bottom time is up the dive is not over at all! Now the cruise in the along the reef starts and if the current is running you have a good chance to see more and more Pelagics on the way. Quite often our divers want to stay down there; because anytime they attempt to swim away from the reef into blue water for an easy boat pick up- another exiting creature appears! Don’t worry we can always do a second dive here, if you like!

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Apo Island East Side

This is a dive at a very relaxed pace along the eastern side of the island. Currents tend to be mild here, if there are any at all. So you have time to look for lobsters hiding in the many nooks and crannies. The white sand between the corals on this slightly sloping wall offers a nice contrast and good photo opportunities. Deeper down you can often spot sleeping white-tip sharks and some turtles prefer the shallow parts. The reef top is at 3m!

 

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Menor Island

This dive is often done as the last one in the day. The wall, and deeper - almost channel-like plateau at around 20m face west, so even in the late afternoon we tend to have enough light there to make it a very enjoyable dive.

The deeper plateau consists of rocks and coral bommies surrounded by sand and often you can see sleeping marble rays or white-tip sharks. If you approach them slowly and carefully you might be able to get very close and get that close up shark eye shot you always wanted! The wall drops down very deep in front of the plateau like a giant step into the abyss, but unless you are doing a late technical dive, you should not venture down there since this is usually your fourth dive of the day!

At the north-west corner of Menor Island is the so called Manta Point. While there is a chance to see a Manta sometimes, the disadvantage of diving here is that there is little else other than barren rocks to see. So we leave this to divers choice, if they want to try.The night is usually spent in the Channel in between the outer reef which provides a sheltered anchorage and the possibility of a night dive for the true addicts!

Let’s explore some sites on the outer reef the next day maybe starting with:

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Apo 29

This site is named after its depth mark on the sea chart , but you might also hear this site called Barracuda Hill. They like to hover here in big schools. The disk corals are mostly broken, but if you are lucky and the currents are running - the place is loaded with shark action, (esp. at deeper depths).

This is a more advanced dive, not much use coming here when there is little current, but you should try to stay in one area rather than drifting away - which makes it a bit more challenging. Best thing to do is to look for a sheltered spot and to wait and see what happens. Once the barracudas and sharks get used to your presence they move closer and seem to stay effortlessly in the current. Definitely a dive where you should use nitrox, but, because of the depth, it still tends to be a

rather short dive. Techies can explore the deep drop off, lots of shark action sometimes at 50+m in a strong current!

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Apo South

Until about fifteen years ago Apo Reef was heavily fished, using very destructive methods such as dynamite. In some areas you can still see the effects of this. Not so much in the northern part of the reef, since this area consists mainly of sheer walls, which isn’t very effective for dynamite fishing. The southern part is mostly a shallow plateau around ten to twelve meters deep, with a steep drop off at the end. On the plateau you can still see damaged corals, often even wide trenches of broken coral which interchange with fantastic table corals, probably the biggest you will ever see, and fields of stag horn corals. During the typhoon season storms and waves batter this part of the reef so most of the recent coral destruction is caused by this natural occurrence. Sharks seem to love this set up and lie around sleeping on those trenches

or patrol between the corals. At the deeper end, down at the drop off, you frequently can see grey reef sharks.

The dive starts as shallow as ten meters and then you can slowly make your way heading south to the drop off. Again, the boat will pick you up, so don’t worry about your navigation skills!

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Apo East and North

Basically the entire North-East side is one endless wall with many overhangs, cracks and small caves. Good chance to see sharks here again, that’s why the spot is also called Shark Ridge. You can dive in various locations here and you can be assured it will never get boring! On the northern most point of the outer reef lie the remains of a ship which ran aground on this treacherous reef. Leave your explorer reels on the boat though. This wreck only serves as a landmark since it is in very shallow water. The wall in front of it is very steep and often our last dive on the way home to Puerto Galera

 

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Apo Northwest

More walls here of course. We tend to pick two spots with a bit more current to drift along and enjoy the fish life. It is also nice to just stay on top of the reef and see what you can encounter there. Coral growth is not as good as around the island but the topography and marine life still guarantee a nice dive

 

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Hunter's Rock

A steep pinnacle in the middle of the ocean and a good ten nautical miles away from Apo - makes this a site which is not always on the menu due to weather and tides. The top of the pinnacle almost reaches the surface and the currents can be very strong.

You guessed it: Experienced divers only and a good chance to see bigger fish, namely sharks and trevallies. Sometimes during the year lots of sea snakes mate there as well. Don’t come here for the corals though, because there aren’t many, didn’t you see enough at Apo already?

 

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Merope Rock

A big underwater mound reaching below 4m from the surface and similar conditions like Hunter’s Rock make this an experienced divers only site again.

Keep your eyes open for pelagics here! Not much corals here again – (come on, you can’t have everything)!

 

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