Balicasag · Philippines · Coral garden · Reef
Royal Garden
A coral plateau at 18 m, swarmed by fish and turtles
Area photo: Thomas Brown · CC BY 2.0
The Royal Garden is a plateau at around 18 m on Balicasag's north-east side, and it is the shallow, unhurried counterpoint to the island's walls: healthy hard and soft coral over the whole shelf, swarmed by reef fish, with turtles grazing through it. Nothing about it is deep or demanding, which makes it the dive operators use to fill a long, easy second tank.
Also known as The Royal Garden.
Where it is and how deep
9.5198° N, 123.6871° EApproximate position — the dashed circle shows where the site lies; your operator's briefing has the mooring.
The dive
The site is a plateau rather than a drop, sitting at about 18 m, and the dive is spent moving across it instead of along a face. That changes the feel of Balicasag completely: no depth to manage, no current to ride, no wall on one shoulder — just a coral shelf underneath you and a very long bottom time, which is why it so often gets used as the second tank after a deeper drift.
The coral is the reason it earns a name rather than a number. Hard and soft coral cover the plateau in good condition, and the fish life over it is dense enough to be the main event: anthias and damsels in clouds over the heads, butterflyfish and parrotfish working through, sweetlips holding under the ledges. Turtles graze across the shelf and, unlike almost everywhere else, you can follow one for several minutes without a depth problem.
For photographers it is the easiest site on the island: shallow enough for natural light, calm enough to hold position, and busy enough that something is always in frame. For everyone else it is the dive that makes the crossing worth it on a day when the current is wrong for the walls.
Marine life and season
- Reef fish swarms
- Sea turtles
- Pristine corals
- Nudibranchs
- Trevally & jacks
| 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 Balicasag: Nov–Jun gives the calmest crossings; the south-west monsoon and typhoons make Jul–Oct unreliable and can close the exposed sides.
Dive videos
Philippines Scuba fun Diving in the Royal Garden Balicasag Island Dive Spot · Philippine Fun Divers on YouTube
Questions divers ask
How deep is the Royal Garden?+
It is a plateau at around 18 m and the dive stays on top of it, so the whole site is inside Open Water limits and gives an unusually long bottom time for Balicasag.
What makes the Royal Garden different from Balicasag's other sites?+
It is a shallow coral shelf rather than a wall. There is no drop to manage and normally little current, so it is dived as a slow traverse across dense hard and soft coral with reef fish and turtles over it.
Sources
- Your Guide to Diving in Bohol — Dive The World
- Royal Garden — Scubago
- Diving in the Philippines — Wikivoyage
More dive sites in Balicasag
The protected shallows where Balicasag's turtles are thickest
Black coral on the deeper reef, dived as a drift
Wall
Shafts of light in a cracked cavern on the north wall
Gorgonians, overhangs, and turtles of both local species
Wall
The outcrop on the drop where the jacks and barracuda gather
Similar dives elsewhere
A calm coral garden at 5–20 m, the island's easiest dive
Fusiliers and damsels wearing colours you would not expect
An islet with one tree, ringed all round by hard and soft coral
Temple, cabbage and mushroom coral in 15 m of water