Rock Point West

The reef top gives way to a slope that begins to fall at 7 m and carries on to 30 m, so the profile is yours to set: drop along the coral early and work shallower as the dive goes on. Sea Explorers' note on the site is that you can easily go with the current, so it is run as a one-way dive rather than as an out-and-back along the slope.

Hard coral is the reason to dive here. Staghorn and table corals compete for space with mushroom corals and endless stretches of leather coral down the slope, and it is the coverage rather than any single feature that defines the site. It rewards swimming slowly and low, watching your fins as much as the reef.

Off the slope, seemingly thousands of pyramid butterflyfish and red-toothed triggerfish swim out into the blue. Closer in, the coral hides the finds people come back for: frogfish and cuttlefish are the most sought-after residents here, with juvenile sweetlips, turtles and fire clam shells along the way. Sea snakes are on the site list too, and Apo Island as a whole can produce banded sea kraits in double figures on a single dive.

Towards the southern tip the slope leads onto a plateau, and this is where the current gets stronger most of the time. It is the natural end of the drift rather than somewhere to linger, so deploy your buoy, come up off the plateau and let the boat come to you rather than working back along the reef.