Marinduque offers some of the best scuba diving at slightly remote, unspoiled and unexplored steep walls and coral reefs.

Send us your images for this dive site[Add Image][Add Movie]

Marinduque is a circular island in the center of the Philippines just south of Luzon and east of Mindoro. This volcanic island is covered in dense rainforest, rugged mountains and has a brilliant but quiet shore line. Diving in the Tabayas Straits and even more so in the Sibuyan Sea can be highly rewarding, offering all from steep and strong current walls to secluded coral diving.

Marinduque Island is yet to be overrun by tourists but has a lot of potential considering its many caves, steep mountains and wild forest. Environmentalist, mountaineers, campers, hikers and spelunkers can make excellent trips here although it is still hard to book organized tours. The forests of the Alagbag Mountain Range, Tres Reyes Marine Sanctuary and the Central Marinduque Mountain Range are inhabited by endemic wildlife and animals such as deer, monkeys and many species of birds. The southern mountains continue dropping down steeply providing for excellent steep walls, hefty currents that offer perfect conditions for fishing and diving. Other things to do are picnicking on White Beach, visiting the mystic Bathala Caves and hiking towards Mount Malindig volcano (1157 meters) and its Molbog Sulfur Spring. The capital Santa Cruz, Torrijos, Boac, Gasan and Buenavista are some of the more popular towns where you can visit remains of its rich Spanish influence. There are several tours to the Marcopper Mining Corporation Mine Sites where tons of copper are being retrieved for both export and for Philippinean building materials.

Scuba divers will be treated with many remote and unexplored sections of reefs and walls. Most diving is done by dive safaris or liveaboard often coming from Puerto Galera and Borocay, but some dive shops on the island offer day trips as well. There is some good drift wall diving around its shores, several intact wrecks and splendid waving gorgonians and soft corals. You can explore the cave of Balthazar, visit private Elephante Island or find yourself amongst WWII ship wrecks and airplanes near Maestre de Campo Island. Banton Island offers some of the best walls where you can find tuna, sharks, barracuda and other pelagic fish species. Marinduque, although still remote and slightly inaccessible, is one of the top scuba dive destination you can find while diving in the Philippines.

Take a look at all the pictures!