Anda · Philippines · Muck & macro · Wall
Dapdap
A sloping wall onto muck at 25 m, dived for nudibranchs
Area photo: Ioannis Magouras · CC BY 4.0
Dapdap is a muck dive with a wall attached. The reef slopes away and bottoms out on muck at about 25 m, and that bottom is where the dive happens: nudibranchs are the reliable find, along with the other small things that live on sand, and it is worked slowly behind a macro lens.
Where it is and how deep
9.7271° N, 124.5472° EPublished position for this site.
The dive
The wall here slopes rather than drops, which makes it easy to descend along and easy to pick a depth on the way down. It ends on a muck bottom at about 25 m, and that bottom is the site: sand and rubble instead of coral, the kind of ground that gives up nothing at all until you slow down and start looking at it square metre by square metre.
Nudibranchs are what divers come back with, and there are plenty of them, along with the other small creatures scattered along the bottom. The photography is macro. The sensible plan is the usual muck one — get down, cover very little ground, and let the sloping wall carry you back up shallow at the end rather than ascending through open water.
Marine life and season
- Nudibranchs
- Macro critters
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prime | Prime | Prime | Prime | Prime | Good | Fair | Fair | Fair | Good | Prime | Prime |
Season follows Anda: Nov–Jun is the main season; the south-west monsoon and typhoons make Jul–Oct unreliable on this exposed coast.
Sources
- Dapdap dive site — Scubago (SSI)
In The Logbook
- Nudibranchs: species, habits and where to diveMacro & muck · 13 min read
More dive sites in Anda
Wall
A drift wall rated for beginners through advanced divers
Wall
A wall corner where pelagics pass, over sand at 25 m
Reef
Reef top at 5 m, sandy slope at the foot of the drop
Coral garden
A protected coral garden at 5–10 m above a canyon wall
Wall
A large overhang at the foot of a wall that drops to 32 m
Wall
A wall to 30 m, split by cracks and crevices
Wall
Two buoys, east and west, because the wall runs that long
Wall
A 20 m corridor at depth, leading to a room at 26 m
Similar dives elsewhere
Sea fans on the mini-wall hold pygmy seahorses
Village-bay sand and rubble with mandarinfish and cardinalfish
Fine sand and rock past 30 metres, dived for the small stuff
Harlequin shrimp and flamboyant cuttlefish on black sand