Black Forest
A southeast slope off Balicasag, swum against the current low over sand until it turns and drifts, with black coral at 35 to 45 m.
Last updated August 2026
The dive
The boat drops you at the northern end and the direction is not yours to pick. The dive runs one way, south, with the slope on your right shoulder, and the first stretch is swum into the current low over the sand. There is no forest at the entry, which is what divers notice first: a bright bed of sand and seagrass with coral heads scattered through it, and a green turtle chewing its way across more often than not.
Then the guide turns you downhill. The slope is coral bombs and boulders, with the current running sideways across the face, and one diver read the day's strength off the way the anemones leaned. Somewhere on this section the flow turns and the dive stops being work. Bigeye trevally come through in a rotating column here. Whitetip reef sharks tuck into the small caves at around 22 metres.
The finish is the same ground you started on, arriving from the other end. The current carries you back up onto the shallow coral garden about 350 metres from where you got in, and the safety stop is the prettiest part of the dive. The stand of black coral that gives the site its name has been below you the whole time.
What makes it special
The site is named for something that begins where the dive ends. The dense black coral runs from 35 to 45 metres and the slope is dived to 40, so the lower half of the named feature sits under the deepest point anyone is taken to. The operators' own interest window here closes at 40 metres, the deepest they set anywhere on this island: every other face is cut off at 30 metres or less. Nothing on offer goes further down than that.
That does not put the coral out of reach. Colonies are reported from about 25 metres, and a photographed dive in 2015 found plenty of them at 15 to 18 metres. Regionally that is unremarkable: antipatharians are recorded as abundant between 15 and 40 metres in Bohol waters1. The coral is reachable. The forest is not.
The water is the other thing that separates this slope from its four neighbours. No operator calls this one easy, and the qualifier is about movement. The current is graded on every day and never at zero, so there is no version of this dive with the flow switched off.
Photographer's notes
Turtles at ten metres are what people come home with, and black coral is not. The shallow shelf is sand, seagrass and scattered coral heads under full sun, and a green turtle grazing across it is the ordinary case; hawksbills get named on the same ground, though far less often. One diver put the appeal down to the light on the sand more than to anything on the slope.
Macro rewards the middle of the dive. Clownfish sit in the anemones, frogfish turn up among the boulders, and divers have described hundreds of Nembrotha nudibranchs on a single dive here. Wide angle gets two subjects: the jack column off the slope, and black coral colonies at 15 to 25 metres, which are the shallowest most divers will ever photograph.
Know before you go
The current is the plan here, and it still sets how the dive goes. It runs on every day and never drops to nothing, so nobody gets a quiet-day version of this site. The first stretch is worked against the flow, close to the bottom, which is where air consumption and trim show up, and the second half puts you several hundred metres downstream of the boat's drop point. Carry an SMB and expect to use it, because the ascent happens in open water with the boat tracking you.
Fix your maximum depth on the boat. The slope has no floor inside recreational range, and going down to find the stand is a different dive from the one being sold.
Titan triggerfish nest on the shallow reef top the dive finishes over, and they turn territorial and aggressive in May, June and July. Move away horizontally, keep your fins between you and the fish, and do not ascend to escape one. Those same months are when southwest swell is most likely to take this face of the island off the day's list altogether.
Why Dive Black Forest
What makes this dive site stand out.
- Black coral below the dive
The dense stand runs 35 to 45 m and the slope is dived to 40
- Current in the plan
Swum into the flow low over the sand, then drifted once it turns
- Shallow turtle shelf
Sand and seagrass with coral heads at 8 to 15 m, grazed by green turtles
- Jacks off the mid slope
Bigeye trevally circling in a column where the slope steepens
- A one way traverse
Entry and exit about 350 m apart, so the finish is a drift under an SMB
Depth & Profile
Location
9.5148°N, 123.6889°E
Conditions & difficulty
Summary
The only one of Balicasag's five sites no operator calls easy, and the qualifier is about water movement. The current is always present: the first half is swum into it, and the second half drifts once the flow turns.
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: Graded from mild to strong and never at zero, the only one of the island's sites with no calm setting. The first half is swum into the flow low over the sand, and it turns mid-dive into a drift.Follow the briefed entry direction, stay low over the sand on the first half, and carry an SMB for a finish 350 metres from the entry point.
- Depth: A slope with no floor inside recreational range. The published 40 metres is a working figure and the black coral continues to 45.Fix your maximum depth on the boat. The dive as run averages about 14 metres, and going down to find the stand is a different dive from the one on offer.
- Marine life: Titan triggerfish are territorial and aggressive in May, June and July, and they nest on the shallow reef top the dive finishes over.Move away horizontally, keeping fins between you and the fish, and do not ascend to escape one.
- Surface and boat traffic: Exposed southeast face. In swell the fleet is concentrated and boats work the same moorings together.Deploy an SMB before ascending and surface where the guide indicates, not in open water.
- Remote location: The island has no dive infrastructure, and no working recompression chamber is confirmed on Bohol. The nearest are on Cebu, about 90 kilometres north; getting there means crossing the strait by boat or by air.Carry insurance with hyperbaric cover and know the numbers before the boat leaves: Gov. Celestino Gallares Memorial Medical Center in Tagbilaran City on (038) 411-4868 and 411-4869, and the coast guard station at Barangay Tawala on Panglao on 0927-350-5484.
Marine Life
Regulations
The sanctuary's no-take core sits on the west side of the island, not on this slope. Training and introductory dives are not run anywhere at Balicasag.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you actually see the black coral at Black Forest, or is it too deep?▾
Black coral is reachable here. The stand the site is named for is not. It runs from 35 to 45 metres, which puts its lower half below the 40 metres the slope is dived to and below anything on offer here. Individual colonies are another matter: they are reported from about 25 metres, and a photographed 2015 dive found plenty of them at 15 to 18 metres. That is not a fluke of one dive either, because antipatharians are recorded as abundant between 15 and 40 metres in Bohol waters. Expect to swim past colonies on the slope and to look down at the stand from above.
How deep is Black Forest really?▾
Eight metres at the reef top and 40 at the working maximum. Forty is where the recommendation stops; the slope keeps going and the black coral is still growing at 45. What a diver actually does here is much shallower than either number. One logged profile from a December trip averaged around 14 metres across a 47-minute dive in water near 28 degrees, the interest on this slope is published as peaking at 15 metres, and a diver on his first fun dive after certifying was taken along it at about 10. Treat 40 as a ceiling nobody needs to approach.
Do you need Advanced Open Water for Black Forest?▾
No. Open Water is the certification asked for here, and the dive as it is run sits around 14 to 15 metres, nowhere near a depth that needs Advanced. What the site does ask for is a diver who is comfortable in moving water. The current is part of the plan here, the first half is swum into it, and the finish is a drift several hundred metres from the entry. Advanced or Deep training changes what you can reach on the slope, not whether you can do the dive.
Is Black Forest a drift dive?▾
Half of it. The dive starts against the current, low over the sand at the northern end, and the flow turns partway through and carries the second half south along the slope. That is how the dive is designed, and when the current is up the whole thing is briefed as a drift. It also means the exit is not the entry: you finish roughly 350 metres down the coast, on the shallow coral garden, which is why an SMB matters more here than on the island's other sites.
Which side of Balicasag is Black Forest on?▾
The southeast. The published entry and exit coordinates put both points off the island's east-southeast face, with the track running roughly southwest over about 350 metres. Diver's Heaven sits immediately to the north on the northeast shoulder, close enough that a dive from one can end in the other, and some listings have merged the two into a single northeast site. The distinction matters for planning: this face is the exposed one, and it is the one the southwest monsoon takes away.
Are there sharks at Black Forest?▾
Whitetip reef sharks, and a small group of them appears to be resident. Divers report them on the slope at around 22 metres, tucked into the small caves, which is well inside recreational depth. They are resting animals, so a group that swims past the right cave sees them and the next group does not. Treat a sighting as luck on the day. Whale sharks come up occasionally in descriptions of this slope with no season and no frequency behind them, and nobody should book the dive for one.
Is Black Forest any good for snorkelling?▾
Less than the rest of the island. The reef top here starts at about 8 metres, which is deep for a snorkeller, and this is the only one of the five island sites graded that way; the others are called good or excellent. There is real material up there, sand, seagrass and coral heads with green turtles feeding through it, but it sits further under you than at the northeast sites, and a mask-and-snorkel visit gets the shape of the place without the animals in it.
References
- 1.Philippine Journal of Science — Density of Associated Macrofauna of Black Corals (Anthozoa: Antipatharia) in Jagna, Bohol, Central Philippines
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