Dauin

Dauin's sites lie directly off the black-sand beaches, so resorts either walk divers in from the sand or run boat hops of a few minutes, and pairs go down with a guide working a slow zigzag across the slope, pointing out things you would otherwise swim straight past. Dusk and night dives sit in the ordinary schedule rather than counting as an extra, and nobody travels far between them: three or four dives a day is the norm and the surface interval is spent back at the resort.

Underwater the coast is volcanic sand, dark and close to featureless, where the interest is whatever has settled on it or been put there on purpose: concrete blocks, tyres and, at a couple of sites, sunken cars, all of it colonised by small animals. The municipal sanctuaries at Masaplod and off the poblacion add patches of hard coral and reef fish to the sand, and the Masaplod rubble is where the mandarinfish rise in pairs in the last minutes of light, which is why that dive runs at dusk.

This is a photographer's base above all, and many resorts guide in twos or threes because the sand rewards staying put rather than covering ground. It also works for people who simply want warm, shallow diving with no long crossings, and for mixed groups where one half wants critters and the other wants coral, since Apo Island's reefs are a full-day outrigger trip from the same beach. Divers hoping for big animals or long visibility are better treating Dauin as one stop on a longer Visayas route than a whole trip.