Doljo Point
Also known as: Doljo, Doljo Point Wall, Doljo Wall
A two-tier wall on Panglao's northwestern tip, with gorgonians between 18 and 30 m and a face that keeps falling past the recreational limit.
Last updated August 2026
The dive
Boats drop onto a sandy plateau at five to ten metres, hard coral and seagrass over pale sand, reef fish working the shallows. Nothing in the first two minutes suggests what the site is. Then the plateau runs out.
The first face falls to eighteen or twenty metres and eases into a short slope. A second face takes over at around twenty-five and runs to forty or fifty. Below that the rock keeps going, past sixty, and no recreational dive follows it down.
The band between eighteen and thirty metres is the reason to come. Gorgonian fans stand off the face, barrel sponges sit among them, and giant frogfish wait inside the elephant ear sponges where the texture breaks up their outline. Most groups put the wall on one shoulder and let the water carry them along it.
Current is the other half of the plan. At a headland it does not set in one direction. It wraps around the point, and it can come up strong on a day that started still. The plateau is where the dive finishes, back in the light, for the safety stop.
What makes it special
Every other local dive on Panglao sits ten or fifteen minutes from the beach the shops work out of. Doljo is at the opposite end of the island, and the outrigger has to run right around the shallow eastern tip because it cannot cut across it. So the trip is a half day and it goes only when enough divers sign up. What that buys is the quietest good diving on the island, and water that is usually clearer than anywhere else on Panglao: around twenty-two metres on an ordinary day, and past thirty often enough to plan a wide-angle dive around it.
The other thing it buys is a season. From June to October the southwest habagat makes the south coast choppy and the shops shift their operations west and north. Doljo, on the far northwestern tip, sits in the lee of that wind, and July to September is its own best window. In the amihan months from November to April the island is at its calmest and busiest, and this is the coast the wind is on. Everywhere else on Panglao, that pattern runs the other way.
Photographer's notes
The fans and the sponges want a wide lens, and they all sit on the second tier, so bottom time is the constraint, and light is not. Work that band along the way out and leave the plateau for whatever the tank has left. Macro has subjects on the same stretch. Giant frogfish sit deep in those sponges, nudibranchs work the rock between them, and harlequin ghost pipefish hang among the fans and feather stars. Both lenses have something here, which means picking one before the boat leaves.
Know before you go
Set your floor before you get in. The lower tier reaches fifty metres in places and the face carries on past sixty, so there is nothing underneath to arrest a slow sink, and the first few minutes are where that bites, before anyone has settled. Level off on the plateau before you move to the edge. Everything worth the trip sits above thirty.
Shore entry works and people use it. Getting to the water by road is simple and the reef top at the entry is shallow enough to need care, but entry and exit both turn awkward when the amihan blows, which is most of November to April. Boat from Alona is the normal way in, and it is a long ride.
Carry an SMB and settle the pickup before you drop. A drift along a headland does not put you back where you started, and the boat has a lot of coastline to look at.
Do not go looking for the sanctuary. Some site lists carry "Doljo Sanctuary" as though it were a second dive here. It is a real marine protected area, but it is a shallow reef flat round the corner on the beach side, and a reef survey in May 2023 found it strictly guarded, with divers generally not allowed inside1. The same survey put its live hard coral cover at fifty per cent, up by a third since 2007, which is a good reason for the guards and no reason to ask an operator to take you there. The wall on the headland is the dive, and it needs no permit.
Be conservative here for a reason that has nothing to do with the wall. This is the far corner of Panglao from the dive strip, on a boat that cannot cut the corner, and the nearest chamber a diver can count on is across the strait on another island. That is a long chain from a depth problem, and it is the site on Panglao most likely to produce one.
Why Dive Doljo Point
What makes this dive site stand out.
- Two stacked walls
The first face ends at 18 to 20 m, then a slope, and a second face starts around 25 m
- Gorgonian band at depth
Sea fans and barrel sponges cover the second tier between 18 and 30 m
- Nothing below to stop you
The face keeps falling past 60 m, so a lapse in buoyancy becomes a depth problem
- The monsoon season site
In the lee of the southwest habagat, so it dives when the south coast is closed
- Clearer than the island average
Around 22 m on a normal day and regularly past 30, above the rest of Panglao
Depth & Profile
Location
9.5924°N, 123.7225°E
Conditions & difficulty
Summary
Easy on the plateau and moderate on the wall. The demands are depth control on terrain with no bottom, and a current at a headland that does not run in one direction.
Safety considerations
What can go wrong here, and what divers do about it. Conditions change - take the briefing from the operator on the day.
- Depth: There is no floor inside recreational range. The second tier runs to 40 or 50 m and the face continues past 60, so a slow sink becomes a depth excursion instead of a bump on the bottom. The first few minutes are where it happens, before the group has settled.Agree a hard maximum before entry and hold it. Level off on the plateau at 5 to 10 m before moving to the edge. The reward band is 18 to 30 m and there is nothing described below 40 m worth the gas.
- Current: Headland current that wraps around the point and never sets one way, mild on most days and sometimes strong.Dive it as a drift with the wall on one shoulder, carry an SMB, and settle the pickup at the briefing.
- Surface and boat traffic: Entry and exit from land can be difficult when the amihan wind blows, roughly November to April, and the reef top at the entry is shallow and easy to damage.Use the boat in the amihan and time any shore entry to the wind. Stay in trim over the reef top and never stand on it.
- Remote location: The far end of the island from the dive strip, on a boat that cannot cut the corner. No chamber on Panglao should be counted on. As of February 2025 the three working ones in the country were in Manila, at Mandaue City on Cebu and at Puerto Princesa in Palawan, the nearest of them about 87 kilometres north across the strait.Carry insurance with hyperbaric cover and know the numbers before the boat leaves: Gov. Celestino Gallares Memorial Medical Center in Tagbilaran on (038) 411-4868 and 411-4869, and the coast guard station at Barangay Tawala on 0927-350-5484.
Marine Life
Frequently Asked Questions
How deep is Doljo Point?▾
The numbers quoted for it run from 20 metres to 80, and they are answers to different questions. The site is two walls stacked on top of each other. A sandy plateau at 5 to 10 m gives onto a first face that ends at 18 to 20 m, a short slope carries down to about 25 m, and a second face starts there and runs to 40 or 50 m. Below that the rock keeps going past 60 m, which is terrain and no longer a dive. Recreational profiles turn around at 35 or 40 m, and 40 is the number to plan against.
Are Doljo Point and Doljo Sanctuary the same dive?▾
In practice, yes. Where a site list shows 'Doljo Sanctuary' as a separate dive, the description is the wall at Doljo Point. There is a genuine Doljo Marine Sanctuary, but it is a different place: a shallow protected reef flat off Doljo Beach, round the corner from the headland, with its crest at 7 to 9 m. It was first protected in 1986 and redrawn in 1998 to about 7.7 hectares. It is not the wall, the wall is not inside it, and it is not somewhere you can book a dive: when scientists resurveyed it in 2023 they found it strictly guarded, with divers generally not allowed in.
Can an Open Water diver dive Doljo Point?▾
Yes, on the plateau. The 5 to 12 m shelf is hard coral, seagrass and reef fish in the best visibility on the island, and every dive here starts and ends on it. The wall is a different question. One reading of the site puts Open Water divers on the first tier on the grounds that it bottoms out at 18 to 20 m, which is true and is also right at the edge of the Open Water limit, over terrain with nothing beneath it. Advanced Open Water is the honest floor for the wall, and the fans that people come for are at 18 to 30 m.
When is the best time to dive Doljo Point?▾
July to September, which is the opposite of the rest of Panglao. The southwest habagat blows from around June to October and makes the south coast where most shops sit choppy and awkward, so operations move west and north. Doljo, on the far northwestern tip, is sheltered from exactly that wind. The flip side is the amihan from November to April: the island as a whole is at its calmest and busiest then, and this is the coast the wind is on. The site can be dived year round, but which coast works changes with the season.
What are the chances of seeing big animals at Doljo Point?▾
Low, and that is not what the dive is for. Solitary whitetip and blacktip reef sharks turn up off the face, and spotted eagle rays are an occasional sighting and never an expected one. Mantas and whale sharks have been seen in the July to September window, described by divers who have been there as rare but real. Chevron barracuda and Spanish mackerel out in the blue are the more reliable large fish. The thing that draws people back is the gorgonian band at 18 to 30 m, and it is there every dive.
Is Doljo Point worth the long boat ride from Alona?▾
It costs a half day, not a morning, and it only runs when enough divers sign up, because the outrigger has to go all the way around the shallow eastern tip of the island instead of cutting the corner. Roughly 15 kilometres by water for a straight-line distance of about half that. What you get is the quietest good diving on Panglao, water that is usually clearer than the south coast manages, and a wall with open sea behind it instead of a sandy floor a few metres down. Divers who do it as the return leg of a Balicasag day routinely rate it above the local sites nearer Alona.
References
- 1.Coastal Conservation and Education Foundation, February 2024 — Summary Field Report for Saving Philippine Reefs 2023 Coral Reef Monitoring Expedition to Province of Bohol, Philippines
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