Diving in Dauin

Dauin is ten kilometres of black volcanic sand, and diving it is a search. The slope drops from about five metres with almost no relief, and it fits the definition the research literature gives muck diving: finding rare, cryptic species that are seldom seen on coral reefs1. You swim a metre off the bottom at walking pace while a guide points out frogfish of several kinds, blue-ringed, mimic and wunderpus octopus, flamboyant cuttlefish, ornate ghost pipefish, thorny seahorses and harlequin shrimp. Frogfish carry the reputation, and the frogfish of Dauin are the subject of the second episode of Planet Earth III2.

The dive sites are municipal sanctuaries. Nine of them lie off seven of the eight coastal barangays, two to nine hectares each and about 52 hectares in all3, and Apo Island has its own. Much of what you look at inside them was put there. Ginama Point is truck tyres tied into tidy clumps, and the name is Cebuano for man made. Car Wreck holds cars, concrete pipes and a mixer at the deep end of the coast, and Pyramids is welded steel standing on open sand. Mainit is the odd one, with warm patches in the seabed and the coast's one real drift. The Masaplod Norte sanctuary has been protected since 1995.

The sanctuaries came before the industry, the opposite of the usual order. Apo Island's, set up in the mid 1980s with Silliman University and the municipal government, is generally described as the country's first successful community-based coastal resource management project. On the mainland the first sanctuaries went in at Masaplod Norte in 1995 and Poblacion District 1 in 1996, with six more between 2002 and 20053. Dive tourism began on Apo's coral and shifted to the muck off the Dauin beaches1.

What you are buying is a spotter. In a late 2015 survey, 35 percent of the Dauin guides sampled held an instructor rating, and guides in this kind of diving averaged close to 4,000 dives1. Divers coming home talk about the person who found things, not the sites.

Know what is missing. There is no wall, no big animal and no sweeping scenery. Divers who want reef go to Apo Island, a barangay of this same municipality and a day trip by bangka from the beach.

Fly to Dumaguete (DGT) and drive 20 to 30 minutes south; Dauin lies 15 to 20 km from the city. Most operators sit in Dauin though many market under Dumaguete's name, and no sites lie in Dumaguete itself, so book by where the shop sits. Diving is mostly shore entry, over rocky, unstable ground that makes hard-soled booties worth packing, with short boat rides for the rest. Dives are commonly single-tank outings with a return to the resort between them, in groups of up to four divers per guide at one operator. Open Water is enough for the sanctuaries and the reefs in front of the resorts. Buoyancy matters more than the card, because the silt lifts easily and a loose fin takes the dive away from everyone behind you. Mainit is dived as a drift, and the deeper artificial-reef sites at the south end are where a shop will ask for Advanced and recommend nitrox, which one operator offers to 32 percent with a surcharge.

Protection here is municipal, declared by ordinance of the municipal council and enforced by barangay fishers' associations. Fishing is banned inside the sanctuaries; diving is allowed on payment of a fee that attaches to each dive at each site, not to the day. Your shop buys entrance tickets in advance from the Treasurer's Office at the municipal hall, and the sea wardens on duty collect them3. Operators describe the money as splitting 40 percent to the municipality, 40 percent to the fishers' association that maintains the sanctuary and 20 percent to the host barangay. Rates come from an ordinance and move, so ask what a dive package includes. Night and dusk access is set sanctuary by sanctuary and has been withdrawn before, so ask close to your dates.

Water runs 26 to 30 C, 3mm is comfortable and many divers wear less. Diving goes on all year, with December to April the drier stretch. Stonefish, scorpionfish, stargazers, lionfish, cone shells and the blue-ringed octopus sit in the sand you are photographing, so hover and touch nothing. A hyperbaric chamber facility is reported operating in the municipality. Apo Island charges its own entrance fee at its own registration office; the crossing is 30 to 45 minutes each way, usually for up to three dives, and its sanctuary has been closed for rehabilitation before, so confirm access near your dates. Tell the shop which animal you most want to see; finding it is the guide's job.