Tuble Reef
Also known as: Tuble, Tuble Marine Sanctuary, Tuble Point, Tuble Sanctuary
A quiet wall inside one of Moalboal's four declared marine sanctuaries, cut with vertical canyons and ending at a small cave at 27 to 30 metres.
Last updated August 2026
The dive
Check the tide before anyone gets in. At low water the reef top here is barely covered and the coral edges are sharp, which turns a routine giant stride into something worth timing. That reef top is the roof of the dive, not the dive.
The wall begins a few metres off the lip and falls to about twenty-five. Vertical canyons are cut back into its face, and they are why this is not the fourth version of the drop-off either side of it. You work into them and back out along the face.
Soft coral, big gorgonians, shells and anemones cover the wall. Banded sea kraits are routine along it, and razorfish school over the shallows with the big parrotfish. What the guides slow down for is smaller: nudibranchs, scorpionfish, stonefish, stargazers, squid, and pygmy seahorses on the deep fans if the guide knows which fan.
At twenty-five metres the wall bottoms into sand. Just past it, between twenty-seven and thirty, there is a small cave, and this is where the dive stops being gentle. Water can set into it. That is the only current anybody describes at this site, and it reads as a warning.
The exit is its own instruction. Surface, get positively buoyant, and swim clear of the wall so the boat can pick you up off the surface.
What makes it special
Vertical slots cut back into a wall face, deep enough to swim into and out of again. The walls north and south of here are plain drop-offs, so a diver working this coast in sequence meets four versions of the same face and then meets this one.
The second thing lasts longer than a dive. Boats go to Pescador and Panagsama, which leaves this wall with fewer divers on it than any of its neighbours, and it is sold on being quiet.
It is also a macro dive in a wall's shape. The animals worth the air here are small ones, sitting on the fans and in the coral heads, and a diver who spends the hour looking out into the blue will surface having missed the site.
History and origin
By 2005 this water was already a marine sanctuary and already carrying survey transects. It is one of four locally declared and managed marine sanctuaries in Moalboal1. No ordinance naming it has surfaced, no declaration year is on record, and no chart of its boundary is published, so the earliest fixed point in its life is a survey team measuring it.
What those surveys produced is why this page can be precise about reef condition where most of the coast can only argue. In April 2013 live hard coral inside the boundary measured 30.8 per cent in the shallows and 45.93 per cent at seven to eight metres, both graded fair and both falling across the series. The fish told a better story. All reef fish density came out at 2,380 per 500 square metres, and target fish biomass had risen from 23.57 kilograms per 500 square metres in 2010 to 153.34 in 20131.
Two shocks bracket that record. A magnitude 6.7 earthquake struck between Moalboal and Guihulngan on 6 February 2012. The sea drew back and came in hard enough to break coral off the wall faces, and this was one of the sites where falling coral came with rising rubble. Then Typhoon Odette in December 2021. A diver working seven Moalboal sites in August 2024 found the shallow water here badly hit, in the same account that called the reef three hundred metres north intact.
Read together the two records point the same way. The shallow half was the weaker half in 2013 and it is the half the storm took. Below about twelve metres, where the canyons and the gorgonians and the seahorses are, nothing has been reported damaged.
Know before you go
Ask about the cave before the briefing ends. Twenty-seven to thirty metres, small, and water can set into it. That one feature is why this dive grades the way it does, and why an Open Water card covers the top half of the site and not all of it. No route through it is described anywhere.
Plan to work below twelve metres if you came for the reef. The shallow coral is the damaged half and the wall underneath it is not.
Buy the environmental ticket before you leave the beach. One hundred pesos, and the wording makes it a pass into Moalboal's designated and demarcated sites2. Inside a sanctuary the rest of the rules bite harder. Spearfishing and compressor fishing are banned in every marine sanctuary in the municipality3, touching anything carries a fine of at least 2,500 pesos, and the gorgonians on this wall are exactly what a careless fin takes out.
Then the exit and the road. Surface positively buoyant and swim away from the face for the pickup. If a dive to thirty metres goes wrong here, the nearest chamber is eighty-two kilometres up the coast in Mandaue City, and the road takes about two and a half hours. DAN Asia-Pacific answers the diving emergency line on +61 8 8212 9242.
Why Dive Tuble Reef
What makes this dive site stand out.
- Vertical wall canyons
Cut back into the face, and no other dive on this stretch of coast has them
- A measured sanctuary
Coral cover and fish density recorded inside the boundary across six survey years
- Cave at 27 metres
The deepest named feature here, and water can set into it
- Macro along the wall
Nudibranchs, scorpionfish, stonefish and stargazers are what the guides slow down for
- The quiet wall
Fewer divers book it than any of the walls either side
Depth & Profile
Location
9.9686°N, 123.3693°E
Conditions & difficulty
Summary
Four published hazards, none of them the water itself. Water can set into the small cave at 27 to 30 m, which is the one thing anyone flags about this dive. The reef top is very shallow at low tide and the coral edges are sharp on entry and exit. The dive ends with a surface swim away from the wall for the pickup. And no chamber sits on this coast: Mandaue City is 82 km off, a road transfer of about two and a half hours.
Safety considerations
What can go wrong here, and what divers do about it. Conditions change - take the briefing from the operator on the day.
- Overhead: A small cave sits between 27 and 30 m below the base of the wall, and water can set into it. It is the deepest feature on the dive and the only one anyone publishes a warning about.Raise it in the briefing and agree whether it is on the dive at all. Nothing here is worth entering on the day's judgement.
- Depth: The dive is published to 30 m, with the wall base at 25 m and the cave below that. Figures as low as 3 m circulate for this site and describe the reef top at low water.Plan to the 30 m figure, not to the shallow one, and treat the cave depth as the floor of the dive.
- Structure and sharp edges: At low tide the reef top is barely covered and the coral edges are sharp. Entry, exit and any snorkelling off the boat all cross it.Check the tide before the trip. Hover the reef top and keep fins and knees clear of it.
- Surface and boat traffic: The dive finishes with a surface swim away from the wall, in open water the boat has to locate before it can pick anyone up.Get positively buoyant on the surface, carry an SMB, and swim clear of the face before the boat approaches.
- Remote location: No chamber sits on this coast. The nearest is 82 km away in Mandaue City, a road transfer of about two and a half hours, on a dive published to 30 m.Cover that pays for a chamber, and a profile conservative enough never to need one.
Marine Life
Regulations
Tuble Marine Sanctuary
One of four locally declared and managed marine sanctuaries in Moalboal, and the only one on this coast with measurements behind the designation: a reef monitoring expedition ran transects inside and outside the boundary here across six survey years to 2013. Three separate operations use the sanctuary name for the site. The declaring instrument has not surfaced. No ordinance names it, no designation year is on record and no boundary chart is published, and the earliest fixed point in its life is that it was already under monitoring in 2005. The whole coast also sits inside the Tanon Strait Protected Seascape, which is a landscape designation and puts no quota on divers. The municipal environmental receipt is written as a pass to dive at the sites Moalboal has designated and demarcated. Nobody will run the trip without one, so treat it as a permit and hand the job to the centre when you book. One hundred pesos. The ordinance writes it as a charge per guest and several rate cards on this coast charge it per dive, so what lands on your bill depends on how many dives you book. Spearfishing and every form of compressor fishing are banned at Pescador Island and in all of the municipality's marine sanctuaries, which is the rule that reaches this water. Touching marine life is separately a prohibited act, with an administrative fine of at least 2,500 pesos per person.
Frequently Asked Questions
How deep is Tuble Reef?▾
Zero to 30 metres. The wall runs from a reef top that dries at low water down to a sandy base at about 25 metres, and a small cave sits below that between 27 and 30. A figure of 3 metres circulates widely for this site and it is not a maximum: it describes the reef top at low tide, which is the roof of the dive. A 25 metre maximum also circulates and stops at the wall base, which is not the deepest thing on the site. The 30 metre figure comes from a per site depth chart published by a resort that dives it, and the cave at the bottom of the range corroborates it independently. If you are planning gas or a no stop time, plan to 30.
Can an Open Water diver dive Tuble Reef?▾
Yes, and the honest answer is that an Open Water card buys the top of this site. Local shops publish it for Open Water and above, and that covers the reef top and the upper wall from the surface to 18 metres, which is where the canyons start and where most of the macro sits. The wall base at 25 metres is Advanced ground and the cave at 27 to 30 metres is not an Open Water feature under any reading. Anything a shop calls easy at this site should be checked against the depth they plan to actually run.
What kind of protection does Tuble Reef actually have?▾
More than most sanctuaries on this coast, and it is the reason this dive is worth writing about. A reef monitoring expedition names Moalboal's four locally declared marine sanctuaries and Tuble is one of them, surveyed directly, inside and outside the boundary, across six years. That is a measurement programme, and it is stronger evidence than anything else on this coast has. Three operations also use the sanctuary name for the site independently of it. What does not exist is the paperwork: no ordinance declaring it has been found, no designation year is on record, no boundary is charted. It was already under monitoring in 2005, so it predates that, and inferring a year from the dated sanctuaries elsewhere in the municipality would be a guess.
Is the cave at Tuble Reef safe to go into?▾
Make that decision on the boat. It is small, it sits between 27 and 30 metres, and water can set into it, which is the single hazard anybody publishes about this dive. That combination is what moves the grade off easy, despite how gentle the profile above it is. No route through it is described anywhere and none should be planned. If the cave is on your dive, it should be because the guide put it there in the briefing with a plan for the current, not because you found it at 28 metres with a hundred bar left.
Are whale sharks seen at Tuble Reef?▾
Occasionally, and this is a claim worth handling carefully. One operation says the area's most whale shark sightings have happened at this site and adds that your chances come down to luck. The wider record for Moalboal points at the wall immediately south instead, and what looks like a second source agreeing sits inside a block of text copied from that neighbouring site's page, so what looks like corroboration is a single voice repeated. Whale sharks pass this coast a few times a year, nothing is provisioned anywhere along it, and no dive here should be booked on the expectation.
Did Typhoon Odette damage the reef at Tuble?▾
The shallow half, yes. A diver who worked seven Moalboal sites across ten dives in August 2024 found the shallow water here, above about 12 metres, badly hit, while describing the reef 300 metres north as intact. That matches what the survey record already showed: the shallows were the weaker half well before the storm, at 30.8 per cent live hard coral in 2013 against 45.93 per cent at seven to eight metres, and both were falling. Nothing has reported damage on the wall below, which is where the canyons, the gorgonians and the pygmy seahorses are. Nobody has surveyed the site since the storm.
Does the tide matter at Tuble Reef?▾
More than it does at most Moalboal sites, because this reef top is genuinely shallow. At low water it is barely covered and the coral edges are sharp enough to cut, so entry, exit and anyone snorkelling off the boat while the divers are down all turn into a question of timing. Ask the centre what the tide is doing on the morning you book. On a low tide the answer may be to run a different site first and come here later.
References
- 1.Coastal Conservation and Education Foundation, Cebu City — Saving Philippine Reefs: Coral Reef Monitoring Expedition to Moalboal and Badian, Cebu, Philippines, April 14-21, 2013
- 2.Sangguniang Bayan, Municipality of Moalboal, Cebu — Ordinance No. 001-2024: Environmental User's Fee and regulation of guided activities
- 3.Municipality of Moalboal, Cebu — Ordinance No. 74-2010: ban on spearfishing and compressor fishing at Pescador Island and in all marine sanctuaries of Moalboal
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