Philippines Photo Gallery: Anilao

We took an underwater photography trip to the Philippines in December 2016.

Anilao is located on Luzon Island south of Manila at the southern end of the Calumpang Peninsula facing Maribacan Island. It was the birthplace of scuba diving in the Phlippines in the 1960s. It is a popular diving destination, famous for macro photography and muck diving. We stayed at Crystal Blue Resort. The resort is built into a steep cliff, so there are a lot of stairs; in particular, there are 101 steps from the dive shop to our room five levels above.

Crystal Blue stairs food buffet lunch Anilao sunset

camera room working on images camera table

Since we were there right after the typhoon, the reefs were disrupted by the storm, so we missed many of the critters usually found in the shallower sites.

We had a small outrigger dive boat to ourselves with a dive guide and several boatmen. We did two hour-long morning dives, returned for lunch and to work on camera gear, then did a mid-afternoon and a twilight-night dive each day.

dive boat dive boat dive boat hauling tanks boatman

NOTE: We are not experts on the animal species; if you find we have misidentified something, email us and we will correct it.

nudibranchs and related animals

shrimps

crabs

eels

clownfish

butterflyfish

cardinalfish

triggerfish

damselfish

stonefish

scorpionfish

frogfish

gurnards

lionfish

boxfish

angelfish

surgeonfish

ocean catfish

hawkfish

goatfish

sweetlips and coris

flame gobies

puffers and balloonfish

rhinopias

blennies

wrasses

sand perches

other fish

worms

urchins

sea stars

shells

cephalopods

mantis shrimps

sea cucumbers

tunichates

anemones

corals

sea pens

sea horses and pipefish

crinoids

sea snakes

other animals


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Last modified 24 April 2018