By: Roni Ben-Aharon
San Miguel is one of the most diverse muck dive sites I have seen in my life. Muck diving, or critter diving, is a particular niche of diving usually reserved for nudibranch nerds or macro photographers. But I don’t dive with a camera, nor am I a nerd (despite liking nudis a whole lot), and this dive site always blows my mind.
San Miguel is located about one minute by boat from Atlantis Dive Resort Dumaguete. We throw an anchor in the shallow sandy area (about 2.5m/ 8 ft deep) right in front of a massive private residence with huge glass windows overlooking the ocean. We jump in and descend, gliding over the sand. The first thing we spot is a piece of what appears to be bright plastic… which turns out to be a yellow juvenile frogfish, about 2cm long. It’s just resting on the sand. We continue to glide and reach about 5m/ 15 ft where we find two dragon sea moths, a darker and larger male darker crawling ahead of a smaller female like a protective husband. At about 7m/ 23ft, we discover a light brown, camouflaged hairy frogfish hiding behind a rock. Next to it, on a black sea cucumber, three emperor shrimp, in impressive violet and red colors, creating a perfect color contrast. We continue at the same shallow depth and bump into a bobtail squid, burying itself in the sand in the most charming, shy movements.
We are now only 10 minutes into the dive, and reach 13m/ 45ft, where a big rectangular block of concrete is laid parallel to the shoreline – one of many artificial structures spread along the Dauin coast to spur coral growth and create shelter in the black volcanic sandy slope. On it we find a 5cm/ 2 in long white and pink painted frogfish, opening and closing its mouth with the wavy motion of the water, then a cuttlefish, and then a moray eel, swimming completely out of the shelter.
As we look around, we see more mantis shrimp than the eyes can capture. Dozens of them run around between holes, diving into them head first, to emerge a few seconds later as if the hole is a three bedroom apartment where they can move around easily, each with incredibly curious eyes, rotating in all directions, staring at you in confusion.
And now we are only 15 minutes into the dive. Want to know how it ends? Come dive with us at Atlantis Dive Resorts Dumaguete – the only dive resort in the Philippines offering 5 guided boat dives per day – and find out for yourself!
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