Diving in the Philippines

Volcanic walls and canyons where the Kuroshio mixes temperate and tropical life

US and Japanese war wrecks 15 minutes by boat from the dive centres

Rubble slopes near Manila hold an outsized range of nudibranchs and seahorses.

A narrow strait holds one of the highest recorded densities of shore fish on Earth.

Community-run whale shark tourism, and mantas queueing in Ticao Pass

The world's second-largest contiguous coral reef, closed to fishing

New species are described from these slopes with unusual regularity

Historic wrecks packed into one bay, from shallow gunboats to a seaplane tender

Pelagic thresher sharks at a cleaning station, now at Kimud Shoal.

Coral gardens, limestone walls and a 40 m swim-through tunnel in protected Bacuit Bay.

A flashlightfish cave and Olango's 73 m wall, minutes from the airport

Whale sharks in the shallows and a sanctuary wall almost nobody dives

Millions of sardines form a shifting baitball reachable straight from shore.

Walls from 5 m past 60, and a dive base of its own

Blue Cathedral, a Pacific cavern swept by schooling jacks and barracuda

A limestone wall the length of the coast, dived by almost nobody

Napaling's resident sardine shoal, and the base for all of Bohol

A permanent tornado of jacks and barracuda on a wall from 6 m

Banded sea kraits on Cervera Shoal, an hour out of Alona

A volcanic island with its own walls, a wreck and a submerged graveyard

Shore-accessible walls from 5 m into blue, dived one boat at a time

Black-sand shore muck with mandarinfish spawning at dusk

A community-run no-take reef since 1982, with turtles on nearly every dive

Sheer mid-ocean walls hold schooling hammerheads and grey reef sharks.

Overhung walls, caves and wartime wrecks a boat ride from Davao City