Beatrice Rock
Also known as: Beatrice, Beatrice 1, Beatrice Rocks, Beatriz, Beatrize Rock
A current-swept rock north of Sombrero Island in Tingloy, dived as a drift over stepped drop-offs and channels to about 30 metres.
Last updated August 2026
The dive
No single face to follow. The rock steps down in short drop-offs with deep channels cut between them, and the dive works along that sequence of edges and gaps in whatever direction the water is running that morning. Small caves and overhangs break it up. Coral covers the structure thickly, and the deepest part of the dive is around 30 metres, which is where gas planning starts to matter in flow.
Fish density is the first thing you notice. Triggerfish, surgeonfish and snappers hold over the coral in numbers, jacks move through above them, and anthias cover the drop-offs in a layer thick enough to shoot through. Featherstars sit out on the high ground with their arms open in the current. Orange sun coral grows in the shaded pockets.
Turtles are the large animal here and they turn up often enough to be worth watching for. The macro kit still earns its place: frogfish and nudibranchs are both reported on the rock, which is Anilao being Anilao even on a reef dive. Water clarity is the other reason people cross for this site. Twenty-five metres has been reported on a good day, against the ten to fifteen that is normal along this coast.
What makes it special
Anilao's reputation is built on sand, silt and animals the size of a fingernail. Beatrice is where the same boat takes you when you want the opposite. The rock is a hard and soft coral structure fed by moving water, and the honest local ceiling still applies to it: nobody comes to this coast for big pelagics, and this dive does not deliver them. What it delivers is reef, in an area that mostly does not.
The mechanism is the current. Water crossing the strait feeds the corals and the sponges and holds the fish in place over them, and out on the reefs toward Maricaban and Sombrero that same water can run from strong to screaming1. Get the timing right and what you find is clear water and anthias in numbers thick enough to colour it1. Get it wrong and you are riding a drift you did not plan.
The photographic instruction that comes with the rock is short: get below the fish and shoot upward, corals behind them, sun above. That is what the site is used for, and it is why a photographer three days into a trip spent on their knees over silt books a morning out here.
Know before you go
The tide comes before the calendar here. Slack or a neap is what this rock rewards, and that one decision does more for the dive than anything else within your control. It is the difference between a comfortable coral dive and a drift you are only along for.
Bring the drift skills the grade implies, and carry an SMB. Nothing establishes that there is a buoy on this rock to ascend on, so assume you will come up on your own marker, in moving water, with traffic working overhead. Beatrice is not a night dive either. Divers who have gone through Anilao's after-dark sites leave this one off the list, and the current is the reason.
Season sits above all of it. November to May is the settled window, November and December quieter than the April and May peak. From June to October the southwest monsoon closes this side of the peninsula regularly, and when the coast guard keeps the boats in, the shops move to the sheltered macro coast. That is a different coast. Beatrice has no bad-weather version of itself.
Then the leg that takes longest to arrange and gets the least thought. No recompression chamber is confirmed operating in Anilao. The nearest facility evidenced as working sits in Metro Manila, about 140 kilometres out and two and a half to three hours of driving, and nobody starts driving until a banca of fifteen to thirty minutes has put the casualty ashore. Beatrice adds roughly twenty minutes again, because the Tingloy side means crossing the strait first. On a 30 metre dive in current that chain is a planning fact, not a footnote. Insurance that covers the chamber and the transfer matters here, so does oxygen on the boat, and the number to keep reachable is DAN Asia-Pacific on +61 8 8212 9242.
Why Dive Beatrice Rock
What makes this dive site stand out.
- Current sets the dive
Dived on a neap tide or at slack, because on bigger tides it runs hard across an open strait
- Anthias over the drop-offs
The wide-angle draw, shot upward with the corals behind the fish and the sun above them
- Stepped drop-offs and channels
Short drops with deep channels cut between them, plus small caves and overhangs
- Reef in a macro area
The site Anilao regulars pick when they want scenery instead of sand and silt
- Clearer than the muck sites
Up to 25 m reported on a good day against the 10 to 15 m normal on this coast
Depth & Profile
Location
13.7049°N, 120.8288°E
Conditions & difficulty
Summary
Graded on the current and not on the depth. At slack or on a neap tide the rock is comfortable for any competent certified diver, and that is when it should be dived. On bigger tides the flow across this part of the strait runs hard enough to make the dive a drift, which puts Beatrice in the area's strong-current set alongside Mainit Point, Bahura and Mapating.
Safety considerations
What can go wrong here, and what divers do about it. Conditions change - take the briefing from the operator on the day.
- Current: Tidal current across an exposed strait site. It ranges from manageable at slack to hard enough on bigger tides that the dive becomes a drift, and it picks up on the turn.Dive it at neap or at slack, bring drift experience, agree the turn before you drop, and carry a surface marker with a boat that can follow it.
- Depth: About 30 m at the deepest part of the dive, which is exactly the Advanced Open Water limit. Working that band in current raises gas consumption above what the same depth costs on a still site.Plan gas for a working dive rather than a passive drift, set a turn pressure before the descent, and treat 30 m as the floor of the plan.
- Surface and boat traffic: Whether this rock carries a mooring buoy is unresolved, so a free ascent in current with boats working overhead is the case to plan for.Deploy an SMB before you leave the rock. Do not plan on finding a line to come up on.
- Surface and boat traffic: Open strait on the monsoon-facing side of the peninsula. From June to October the coast guard stops boats on rough days and this side closes first.Put it early in the trip and hold a sheltered alternative behind it. The bad-weather fallback is a different coast, not a different profile here.
- Remote location: No recompression chamber is confirmed operating in Anilao, and this rock is on the Tingloy side of the strait, so a casualty crosses water before the road transfer begins.Settle the evacuation question before you book, hold insurance that covers hyperbaric treatment and transfer, and check the boat carries oxygen.
Marine Life
Regulations
Beatrice Rock carries no protected-area designation. It lies in Tingloy waters on the Maricaban side of the strait, outside the 356 hectare Mabini Marine Reserve, and it is not one of the named no-fishing sanctuaries on this coast: Arthur's Rock, Twin Rocks and Cathedral Rock in Mabini, and Batalang Bato in Tingloy. A conservation fee is charged per diver per day by municipal ordinance across Mabini and Tingloy and normally lands on the resort bill. Ask your operator what the amount is now, because the figures in circulation disagree with each other.
Frequently Asked Questions
How strong is the current at Beatrice Rock?▾
Strong enough that it decides whether the dive happens at all. The rock sits in the Maricaban Strait with nothing sheltering it, and the flow runs on the tide. At slack or on a neap tide it is a comfortable coral dive that any competent certified diver will enjoy. On bigger tides the water across these reefs runs hard, and divers who go out of their way to find current name Beatrice in the same breath as Mainit Point and Bahura. A rating of easy circulates for this rock. It does not survive contact with the water: the grade on this page is set by the current, not by the depth, and it is the one thing to plan the day around.
How deep is Beatrice Rock?▾
About 30 metres at the deepest part of the dive. That figure is one operator's working maximum for the dive as they run it and not a survey of the terrain, so the rock reaches at least 30 and possibly more. Treat it as a solid number rather than a precise one. Figures of 25 and 27 metres also circulate, and two of the pages carrying them turned out to be copies of a third, so the agreement was thinner than it looked. Thirty is used here because understating a maximum is the error that costs a diver gas. There is deliberately no minimum on this page. The top of the rock is shallow, but the published figures for it run from 5 metres to 14, and a nine metre spread on a single number is what one figure being recopied looks like. Plan on the deep end and let the guide show you the top.
Why is it called Beatrice Rock?▾
The story the local resorts tell is that in the early years of diving in Anilao a group of divers named sites after their companions, and that one of them was a woman called Beatrice. It is worth repeating and it is not worth treating as history. The account carries no date, it hedges its own claim, and every place it turns up traces back to a single telling. Anilao has other sites in the same position, and nobody can say who Kirby was either. The rock also appears as Beatriz, Beatrize Rock and plain Beatrice, so do not be thrown by the spelling on a boat schedule.
Is Beatrice Rock inside a marine sanctuary?▾
No. Beatrice is in Tingloy waters on the Maricaban side of the strait, which puts it outside the 356 hectare Mabini Marine Reserve entirely. The named no-fishing sanctuaries on this coast are Arthur's Rock, Twin Rocks and Cathedral Rock in Mabini, and Batalang Bato in Tingloy, and this rock is none of them. That matters less to a diver than it sounds, because diving inside the sanctuaries is permitted anyway. What does apply here is the conservation fee, charged per diver per day by municipal ordinance across both municipalities and usually added to the resort bill. Ask your operator what the amount is now; the figures in circulation disagree with each other.
Can you dive Beatrice Rock at night?▾
It is not run after dark, and the reason is the current. A diver listing the Anilao night dives he has actually done rules this one out flatly, and that judgement sits with everything else known about the rock: a tidal site in an open strait is a poor place to be in the dark. Anilao's night diving reputation belongs to Anilao Pier, Secret Bay, Arthur's Rock and Twin Rocks, all of them sheltered and shallow and on the other coast. Those are the ones to ask for.
Should you bring wide angle or macro to Beatrice Rock?▾
Wide angle, and this is one of the few dives on the coast where the answer is that clean. The site is used specifically for getting under the anthias and shooting upward with the corals behind them, and the water is usually clearer here than over the muck, up to about 25 metres on a settled day against 10 to 15 as the coast's normal. Bring the macro kit anyway. Frogfish and nudibranchs are both reported on the rock, and a lens choice made on the boat is harder to undo than one made the night before.
When is the best time to dive Beatrice Rock?▾
Two calendars matter here and the smaller one matters more. Within the day, dive it at slack or on a neap tide. Within the year, the settled season on this coast runs November to May, with November and December quiet and April and May the busiest months. From June to October the southwest monsoon often keeps boats off this side of the peninsula altogether, which is when shops fall back to the sheltered macro coast. Water sits around 28 C in the warm season and around 25 from January to March, with reports as low as 24, so a 3 mm suit covers most of the year and a 5 mm earns its place in the cool months.
References
- 1.Divers Alert Network, Alert Diver Q3 2017, August 1, 2017 — On the Hunt
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