Tongo Point
Also known as: Tongo Marine Park, Tongo Point Marine Sanctuary, Tongo Sanctuary
A municipal marine park seven minutes south of Panagsama, dived one way along a wall of purple gorgonians where electric clams live.
Last updated August 2026
The dive
The boat leaves Panagsama after Pescador, and Tongo is what gets you back before lunch. Two kilometres south and seven minutes out, you drop onto a reef top you could snorkel. A few strokes off the lip the hard and soft coral gives out and you are on the wall.
From there the dive runs one way. The boat drops you at one end and collects you at the other, roughly 450 metres along the face, and which end is which gets decided on the day.
The working band is 5 to 18 metres and the wall is where everything happens. Small caves and crevices are cut into it, and they are where the guide will slow down: nudibranchs and shells inside, hardly any water moving, often a turtle parked in one of them. Outside, along the reef, there are fusiliers, razorfish, leaf fish and harlequin ghost pipefish.
The big purple gorgonian stands are the thing to look for. That is where the electric clams live, and the small crustaceans and the seahorses are on the same fans.
Above about 10 metres the picture changes, and no operator page tells you so. A diver who logged 84 feet here on 4 July 2025 found the shallow coral gone in the first 10 metres, with carnation coral and gorgonians still on the face below in the same quantities as Talisay. So the dive now is a stripped top, a wall that improves as you go down it, and macro as the reason to be there.
What makes it special
The electric clam does not glow. A band of tissue at the edge of its mantle reflects light in a fast pulse, which is why the advice about diving it late in the afternoon is a real instruction and not atmosphere. Ctenoides ales is the rare case of an animal a shop hands to one site as its own, and it lives here, in the purple fans.
Protection is the second half of it. The municipality runs this stretch as a marine park, and the centres that dive it call it the Tongo sanctuary. A 2010 ordinance shut down spearfishing and compressor fishing in every Moalboal marine sanctuary, which covers this water by class1.
What is not a reason to come is the shallow coral, and it is not the sardines. The baitball Moalboal is known for is resident 2 kilometres north at Panagsama Beach and it stays there. A school passed through here in August 2024 and that is all it was.
Photographer's notes
Late afternoon is the slot to ask for, because that is when the clams get found.
Search the fans, not the wall face. Ctenoides ales, the small crustaceans and the seahorses are all on the big purple gorgonians, and those fans are also where the pygmy seahorses get described, although no account from this site pins them to a species.
Carry a torch even in daylight. The macro worth stopping for sits inside the caves and crevices, which are dark, and a photographer without a light will swim past the nudibranchs and the shells in them.
For a wide frame, work below 10 metres. The reef top has been bare since Typhoon Odette in December 2021, and the carnation coral and the gorgonians that survived are on the face.
Know before you go
Entry and exit are two different positions about 450 metres apart, so surfacing away from the boat is normal here. Being visible matters more than a 0 to 2 knot current suggests. Carry an SMB and put it up before you come up.
Nothing underneath you stops a descent. The face keeps falling below anything recreational and no shop that runs the site publishes a maximum, so the number is yours to set. The deepest anyone is recorded reaching on a dive here is 26 metres.
The caves are small overhead spaces and they are for looking into from the entrance. No route through them is described anywhere, and none should be planned.
Let the centre buy the fee ticket with the boat. The municipal receipt is written as a pass into the water at Moalboal's demarcated sites, diving included, so it works like a permit and there is no diving without one2. Touching anything is a separate offence across the same waters, and both of this site's turtles have carried their own ordinance since 2002.
Then the part worth settling before you book. There is no chamber closer than Mandaue City, 82 kilometres away, which a local operator's own emergency plan puts at 2.5 hours by road. Three were operating nationwide in early 2025. DAN Asia-Pacific runs the diver emergency line on +61 8 8212 9242. Plan the dive so the answer never matters.
Why Dive Tongo Point
What makes this dive site stand out.
- Electric clams on the fans
The site's own animal, found in the large purple gorgonians and best in late afternoon
- A one way traverse
The boat drops you at one end and collects you at the other, about 450 m along
- Small caves along the face
Dark crevices cut into the wall, where the macro sits and turtles shelter
- Wall past recreational depth
Worked at 5 to 18 m over a face that keeps going, so you set the maximum yourself
- Reef top stripped by Odette
A July 2025 dive found the shallow coral gone in the first 10 m and better below it
Depth & Profile
Location
9.9344°N, 123.3729°E
Conditions & difficulty
Summary
Mild water, with current running 0 to 2 knots and close to nothing around the caves. What earns the grade is the shape of the site. Nothing inside recreational limits stops a descent down the face, the caves are small overhead spaces, and the dive ends at a boat pick up 450 m from the entry. Decide the maximum on the boat and hold it.
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 face runs below anything recreational and no operator that runs the site publishes a floor. The one instrumented dive on record here reached 26 m.Agree a maximum on the boat and hold it, because nothing on the wall marks it for you.
- Overhead: Several small caves and crevices are cut into the face, dark enough to need a torch in daylight.Look in from the entrance. No route through them is described anywhere and none should be planned.
- Surface and boat traffic: The dive finishes about 450 m from where it began, at a position the boat has to come and find.Carry an SMB and deploy it before the ascent.
- Marine life: Scorpionfish and leaf fish blend into a reef top the typhoon left patchy and hard to read.Hold trim over the shallows and do not settle on them.
- Remote location: No chamber is closer than Mandaue City, 82 km up a road governed by Cebu City traffic.Insurance that covers hyperbaric treatment, and a profile conservative enough not to need it.
Marine Life
Regulations
Tañon Strait Protected Seascape
The whole coast sits inside the Tañon Strait Protected Seascape, a landscape-scale designation that puts no quota on divers. On top of that, this site is run and described as a municipal marine park and the centres that dive it call it the Tongo sanctuary, but the designating instrument and the year it was declared are not on the municipal record, so it is not carried here as a declared reserve. A 2010 municipal ordinance bans all spearfishing and compressor fishing in every Moalboal marine sanctuary, and it covers this water by class without ever naming it. The municipal environmental receipt is written as a pass into the water at Moalboal's demarcated sites, for diving as much as for snorkelling, so it is a permit in practice and not a donation. One hundred pesos per guest, bought before you get in the water and normally handled by the centre with the boat. Rate cards bill it per dive while the ordinance frames it per guest, so check what your trip already covers. Both turtles here have been protected across Moalboal's municipal waters since 2002, together with reef sharks, and touching any marine life is separately prohibited.
Frequently Asked Questions
How deep is Tongo Point?▾
The dive is worked between 5 and 18 metres, which is the band the local shops publish, and the deepest anyone has been recorded going on a dive here is 26 metres on a computer in July 2025. You will also meet 35 metres and 55 metres in print. Those describe how far the wall goes, not how deep the dive goes, and the wall in fact goes further than either. Nobody who runs the site publishes a maximum, which means the number is set by your plan and not by the bottom.
What are the electric clams at Tongo Point?▾
Ctenoides ales, also sold as the flame fire shell, a large clam that lives wedged in among the big purple gorgonians. It does not glow. A band of tissue at the edge of its mantle reflects light in a fast pulse, which is why it reads as electric and why it shows best when the light is low. The local advice is the late afternoon, and it is worth taking literally. Very few animals in Moalboal get attached to one particular site the way this one does.
Is Tongo Point really a marine sanctuary?▾
It is run as one and named as one by everybody who dives it, including in its own title on the international site listings, and the parent area carries it as protected. What is missing is the paperwork: the municipality's published register of tourism ordinances runs to eight instruments between 2002 and 2024 and none of them declares this sanctuary or gives a year. The same gap applies to the sanctuaries at Sampaguita, Tuble and Saavedra. What does bind the water is a 2010 ordinance banning all spearfishing and compressor fishing in every Moalboal marine sanctuary, which reaches Tongo by class.
Do you need a special permit to night dive at Tongo Point?▾
No such rule exists in any municipal ordinance, on any operator page, or anywhere else that can be checked. One travel directory publishes the line that night diving at the Tongo sanctuary is prohibited without special permits, and it appears nowhere else. What matters more: no centre schedules a night dive here at all. Moalboal's night diving happens on the Panagsama house reefs and at Talisay Wall, so if you want one, book it there and ask the centre directly.
Is Tongo Point worth diving if the coral is gone?▾
That depends on which part of the dive you came for, and the apparent disagreement about this site resolves cleanly. A visitor in August 2024 called it the worst destruction he saw in the area. A diver in July 2025 found the shallow coral gone in the first 10 metres and the wall below carrying carnation coral and gorgonians, much like Talisay. A resident with around 500 dives in Moalboal says Odette hit the top 15 metres and that Tongo is in good shape. All three describe the same reef: a stripped top over an intact wall. Grade it on hard coral and it is poor. Grade it as a macro wall and it is fine.
Can you see the Moalboal sardines at Tongo Point?▾
Not reliably, and it is not the reason to come. The baitball that Moalboal is known for is resident year round off Panagsama Beach, 2 kilometres north, where divers walk to it from the shore. It shifts a few hundred metres along that stretch, not two kilometres. A school was seen at Tongo on a dive in August 2024, which makes it a nice surprise and nothing more. If sardines are what you want, dive Panagsama and treat this as a different trip.
Is Tongo Point a drift dive?▾
One way, not fast. The current here runs 0 to 2 knots and there is almost none around the caves, so nothing is pushing you along. What makes it drift shaped is the profile: the boat drops you at one published position and picks you up at another about 450 metres away, and the guide picks the direction on the day. In August 2024 one group ran it north to south, the reverse of their previous dive. Practically, it means you will surface away from where you started, so carry a marker buoy.
References
- 1.Municipality of Moalboal, Cebu — What to do, including the register of tourism-related municipal ordinances
- 2.Sangguniang Bayan, Municipality of Moalboal, Cebu — Ordinance No. 001-2024: regulation of snorkelling guides, uniform rates and penalties
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