Fallen tree
Also known as: Fallen Tree, Fallen Tree Cabilao
A north-coast slope on Cabilao that ends at a steep wall, combed slowly for macro on a calm day and drifted along the face when the water runs.
Last updated August 2026
The dive
The water decides which dive this is. On a quiet morning it is a slow crawl down a slope of reef and sand, and when the current runs, the same ground turns into a drift along the wall underneath it.
Take the quiet version first, because it is the one you are most likely to get. The slope comes down from the shallows in patches of sand and low reef, and a guide works it at walking pace: frogfish sitting still and pretending to be something else, sea moths shuffling over open sand, ghost pipefish hanging head-down in the rubble, nudibranchs on everything. An hour goes by without the dive ever getting deep.
At about eighteen metres the slope stops being a slope. A wall takes over below it, gorgonian fans and black coral on the face, turtles coming along it. That is where the other version starts. With water behind you the guide will let the current carry the group down the face instead of combing the top, and the fish that only show up in moving water show up: barracuda out in the blue, bigeye jacks when the day is good, tuna and mackerel and snapper once it is properly going.
One diver who has mapped this island's sites describes a large sunken tree lying in the shallow part of the dive, crustaceans tucked into the branches. One person, one account. Look for it, and do not plan around it.
What makes it special
Cabilao is an island of dives that hold still. You swim a wall, you hover over a plateau, you comb a slope, and current is the thing the briefing tells you to manage. Here it is the reason to come, and this is the only dive on the island presented that way.
The cost of that is a site you cannot order in advance. Calm, and it is the north coast's macro dive, unhurried and shallow. Running, and it is a wall drift where nothing four centimetres long gets a second look. Both versions are worth having and the sea allocates them, not you.
Know before you go
Do not plan this as an eighteen metre dive. Eighteen is where the slope hands over to the wall, and how far that face carries on is not something anyone has measured. Cabilao's underwater ledges have a documented problem with exactly this: water crossing them disorients divers, who end up below the depth an Open Water card allows without registering the descent, and a fast trip up from there is what produces decompression sickness1. Drift along an unmeasured face and there is even less to check yourself against. Pick a floor while you are still on the boat.
Find out which version is on before you kit up. The drift is the one the island's operation keeps for divers with experience behind them, and an operator drawing a line around its own product is worth taking at face value.
Getting help means getting off the island. Bohol's hyperbaric chamber cannot be counted on by anyone planning a dive here: in April 2023 it lay idle over at Panglao, ten days after money had been voted to put it back in service, and a vote to repair something is evidence it was broken1. Cabilao falls under Loon, whose district hospital at Canhangdon is Congressman Natalio Castillo Sr. Memorial Hospital. It replaced a building the 2013 earthquake destroyed, was reported still incomplete in March 2023, and what it is equipped to treat has never been set out publicly2. A serious case travels to Tagbilaran City, where Gov. Celestino Gallares Memorial Medical Center is the referral hospital, and that trip from Cabilao is a crossing plus close to an hour of road, with the last public boat going in the early evening.
Have +61 8 8212 9242 written down before you get on the boat. It reaches DAN Asia-Pacific, and it works when nothing local does. Confirm your cover extends to a chamber outside Bohol.
Why Dive Fallen tree
What makes this dive site stand out.
- The island's drift
The one Cabilao dive where current is the reason to come and not a thing to manage
- Slope onto a steep wall
Reef and sand fall to about 18 m, and the face below that has no established bottom
- Macro above the lip
Frogfish, sea moths, ghost pipefish and nudibranchs on the sand and reef of the slope
- Schooling fish when it runs
Barracuda in the blue, with bigeye jacks reported on the days the water is moving
Depth & Profile
Location
9.8926°N, 123.7691°E
Conditions & difficulty
Summary
The slope is straightforward diving at easy depths and the swimming is never hard. What lifts the grading is the other half of the site: a wall with no established bottom, run as a drift when the water moves, and the drift is the version the island's operation reserves for divers with experience behind them.
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: The wall under this dive has no established bottom, and the dive is often run as a drift along it. Cabilao's underwater ledges have a documented problem here: water crossing them disorients divers, who end up below the depth an Open Water card allows without registering the descent, and a fast trip up from there is what produces decompression sickness. Drifting removes the fixed references that would otherwise tell a diver where they are.Agree a maximum on the boat and treat it as settled once the slope ends. Everything described from the shallow half of this dive sits above 18 m.
- Current: Light on most days, and strong enough on others to turn the site into a drift along the wall. The operation running it treats that version as a dive for experienced divers.Get the direction of the water and the pick-up arrangement at the briefing, carry a marker buoy, and say no to the drift if it is more than you want.
- Remote location: Cabilao has no recompression capability, and no chamber anywhere in Bohol can be relied on. Leaving the island means a boat crossing and then road time, and the public crossings finish in the early evening.Conservative profiles, cover that extends to a chamber outside Bohol and the journey there, and the emergency numbers somewhere that does not need a battery.
Marine Life
Frequently Asked Questions
How deep is Fallen Tree?▾
No maximum is published for this dive, and the reason is worth knowing before you book it. One figure attaches to the site with any confidence, about 18 m, and that is where a gradual slope from the shallows meets a wall. It is the start of the second half of the dive and not the end of it. Forty-five metres also gets quoted here. The same forty-five gets quoted for three of this island's other dives, which marks it as a template and not four soundings. Nobody has published a dive-computer profile from this site either, so there is no logged number to fall back on the way there is at the island's southern tip. The usable answer is this: shallow to about 18 m on the slope, then as deep as you allow yourself on a face nobody has measured. Set that limit on the boat.
Is there an actual fallen tree at this site?▾
Possibly, and it rests on one account. A diver who has mapped Cabilao's dives describes a large sunken tree in the shallow part of this one, with crustaceans living in the branches. It is one person's observation, and it is not the thing to book the dive for. The other reading is that the name works the way most names on this island work, off a landmark on the shore above: the lighthouse dive is named for a lighthouse, the pier ground for a pier. Either way the animals are not conditional on it. Frogfish, sea moths and ghost pipefish are on the slope whether a tree is down there or not.
Will there be current, and will it be a drift?▾
Light on most days, and the site is organised around the days it is not. Cabilao is a gentle island for water movement, which is exactly why this dive stands out: the people who run it describe a drift along the wall when the current picks up, and they sell that as the attraction, where every other dive on this island treats current as something to manage. What you cannot do is order one version. Ask on the morning, because a calm day here is a slow crawl over sand and a moving day is a completely different dive on the same ground. If it is running, get the direction and the pick-up plan at the briefing and clip on a marker buoy, since you will surface a long way from where you went in.
Is Fallen Tree suitable for a newly certified diver?▾
On a calm day yes, on a running day no, and nobody can promise you which one you will get. The slope is easy diving: shallow, gentle, and everything a guide will point out sits above the lip at 18 m. The drift is a different proposition on the same piece of coast, and the operation that runs it says plainly that version is for divers with more experience, which is unusual enough to take at face value. No certification minimum is set anywhere on this island, so the call is yours and the guide's on the day. If it is your tenth dive and the water is moving, the sheltered west coast will still be there tomorrow.
Are there hammerheads at Fallen Tree?▾
No, and the old reports never pointed at this stretch of coast in the first place. Cabilao was dived for scalloped hammerheads through the 1990s, they were reported fished out around the turn of the century, and no dated sighting has been recorded at the island since. Where those reports did attach was the northwest tip and the Talisay ground further east. This piece of the north coast lies between the two and appears in neither. Copy selling a December-to-April season is still on sale, and one version of it puts the animals at 40 to 45 m. On a dive that ends at a wall nobody has measured, that is a depth target handed to you for something that is not there.
What will you actually see at Fallen Tree?▾
Two lists, and the water decides which one you get. Calm: frogfish, sea moths, ghost pipefish, nudibranchs and cardinalfish, picked out of sand and reef on the slope. Moving: barracuda in the blue, bigeye jacks on a good day, and tuna, mackerel and snapper once it is really going. Gorgonian fans and black coral sit on the wall face whichever dive you get, and turtles turn up on both. Weight the macro list more heavily than the pelagic one. The small animals live here; the schooling fish are passing through on water that is not there every day.
References
- 1.Philippine Information Agency, April 10, 2023 — PDRRMC to fund operation of 'unused' hyperbaric chamber
- 2.Bohol Island News, March 19, 2023 — Aris wants Loon hospital done by March this year
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