Devil's Point

Between 27 and 30 metres at the deep end, depending on whose boat you are on, with the average nearer 14. Two operator charts arrive there independently. One prints 90 feet as its maximum, which is 27.4 in metres; another prints a flat 30. Each figure describes how deep that particular shop runs the dive, so treat both as a floor on the terrain and neither as a ceiling. A dive-computer trace from this rock has never been published; one would carry more weight than either chart. Ignore the 15 metres that turns up in catalogue listings for the site, because no account of an actual dive here supports it.

A separate rock, and not your dive. In May 2014 a rebreather team scouting the site for specimen collecting rode scooters across a sand plain at about 55 metres and found a second pinnacle standing near 76 metres, surrounded by thousands of reef fish and apparently part of a ridge that keeps going down. They thought they were the first divers ever to see it. It matters to a recreational diver for exactly one reason: it explains why bigger fish turn up on the slope, since what you dive is the shallow crown of a far bigger feature. The dive itself has nothing to do with it, and that depth is closed-circuit ground.

Usually calm, sometimes not, and the two claims come from the same place. One operator's write-up calls the site normally calm by comparison with other Anilao dives, contrary to what the name suggests. That same operator's own chart is the more careful document: calm with medium to strong currents, capable of turning rough when the current runs hard. The chart is the document to plan on, because it is the version written for people booking a boat, and it is not the only thing on that side of the argument: a biologist writing up his own dive places this pinnacle hard against the Verde Island Passage and reports strong currents on it. So the cautious reading has a source with nothing to sell behind it. In practice that means a settled forecast is worth waiting for and the question to ask at the shop is what the water did on the last trip out.

Yes, and they get most of what makes the site worth the crossing. The reef people come for is the shallow carpet across the pinnacle, comfortably inside the 18 metres an Open Water certification covers, and the average depth one operator prints for the dive is about 14. The page is graded Advanced Open Water because the working profile runs down the slope to between 27 and 30 metres, past that limit. The sensible version is to say at the briefing which dive you are doing, agree a turn depth, and let the group that is going deeper go deeper.

Distance. It sits at the far corner of Maricaban Island, 25 to 30 minutes out from the Anilao side, and at least one resort puts an additional boat charge on the trip, shared between everybody aboard. It falls in the same surcharge band as Ligpo, Bonito, Coconut and Red Palm. The practical effect is that this is a dive you ask for and a group you have to fill, so it does not show up on a standard three-tank day by accident. A well-travelled Manila diver, asked about Anilao, described this site as right across the island from everything else and admitted he had never made the trip. Confirm the boat is actually going before you build a day around it, and treat any surcharge figure you have been quoted as an operator price that moves.

Nobody publishes an answer, and it is worth saying so instead of inventing one. What is documented is a second name: the feature is labelled Burijar Point on nautical charts, which is why the two names both circulate for one dive. There is no separate site called Burijar. Note also that Devil's Point is not a unique dive-site name worldwide, so if you are searching for trip reports or photographs, add Anilao or Maricaban to the query or you will get a headland in Plymouth.

Metro Manila, and the first two legs out of here happen on water. No Anilao facility survives a check as a working chamber. The one that does is 140 km away, and the drive takes 2.5 hours on a clear run, 3 in normal traffic, before the city leg at the far end. Reaching the car costs two boat legs from this rock. The Maricaban Strait accounts for about 20 minutes on its own, because the site is Tingloy ground on the island side of the water, and the banca run every dive on this coast needs sits on top of it, 15 minutes in flat water and longer when it is not. No published figure covers the whole journey. What the boat surcharge measures is exactly this problem. Before you board: make sure the policy pays for a hyperbaric bed and for the transport there, ask what oxygen is carried, and keep +61 8 8212 9242 somewhere you can reach it, which is DAN Asia-Pacific.