CALAPAN CITY, Philippines – Two tourist destinations in Region 4B or MIMAROPA (Mindoro-Marinduque-Romblon-Palawan) have been listed among the world’s best diving sites, the travel news website of the Cable News Network (CNN) said.
The CNN’s list of best dive sites in the world ranked the Tubbataha reef, located southeast of Palawan, eighth and “The Canyons” in Puerto Galera, Oriental Mindoro 45th among the top diving sites.
According to the CNN website, a diver will have a “super-size dive experience at Tubbataha, where everything comes in giant form.” It also said that Tubbataha’s allure lies in its waters that are “exceptionally clean, so the marine life lives much longer, making it grow to silly proportions.”
“Expect kaleidoscopic colors combined with guitar sharks, black tip reef sharks, nurse sharks, gliding blue-spotted lagoon rays, unicorns, boxfish, scorpion fish and more,” the CNN said.
Tubbataha is located 181 kilometers southeast of Puerto Princesa City in Palawan Province. The reef is made up of two coral atolls divided by an eight-kilometer wide channel. Its diving area has a depth of five to 60 meters.
Tubbataha is also part of the Tubbataha National Marine Park, which was established on August 11, 1988 and was declared a “World Heritage Site” by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in December 1993. The marine park is under protective management by the Department of National Defense (DND) and under the technical supervision by the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD) and Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
Meanwhile, “The Canyons” made it to the CNN’s list for being a “first-rate dive site.”
“Schools of spotted and ribbon sweetlips, shiny trevallies and weird-looking batfish make up the scene at this first-rate dive site. There’s also an explosion of coral and plant life including beautiful delicate gorgonian sea fans and hollow barrel sponges; look inside for critters lurking within,” the website said .
The Canyons was rated as a five-star diving site and located at the northeast of Escarceo Point, some five- minute boat ride from Brgy. Sabang.
With a depth of up to 30 meters or about 95 feet to a maximum of 200 feet, The Canyons’ area was designated as a “Man and Biosphere Reserve” of UNESCO in 1973.