Sumilon Island is a small 24 hectare coral island located off the tip of Cebu. Famous for both snorkeling, diving and enjoying the sand bar there. Sumilon Island was the second marine sanctuary to be setup in the Philippines.
Featuring a single hotel on the island the Sumilon Bluewater Island Resort nestled on the Southern tip of the island.
The island is famous throughout the country and internationally for the exceptional beauty of its dive sites. Sumilon has four major dive sites, which are Garden Eel Plaza, Nikki’s Wall, Coral Landscape and Julie’s Rock. The island’s diving sites are famous for their superb visibility, stunning reefs and abundance of varied tropical marine species that provide an ideal and memorable dive. There are frequent sightings of black tip & white tip reef sharks during dives. A popular attraction in Sumilon Island is its sandbar because of its changing shapes and shifting locations around the island depending on the season. Other places of interest in the island are a natural lagoon with high mangroves and natural caves used by fishermen to seek refuge during storms, and a lake. On the south portion of the island, a lighthouse rests on a protected tree park and beside it is a “baluarte”, a historical watchtower built as part of a warning system to thwart slavers and marauders in the 19th century.
Trips to Sumilon Island
Our trips to Sumilon don’t work to a fixed itinery, please discuss with us when you arrive in resort.
For snorkelling and island hopping to Sumilon
To get to Sumilon Island a guide you will need to take a boat from nearby in Oslob, close to the Oslob Whaleshark interaction point. For this reason we often recommend combing a trip to Sumilon as a package with the Oslob Whalesharks. Often snorkelers like to spend a few hours on the island, a BBQ lunch of fish and rice can be arranged on the boat as required. A member of staff from the hotel will go with you to arrange everything needed including the boat and lunch.
Diving at Sumilon Island
For divers this is a rare opportunity to dive with several Whitetip & Blacktip reef sharks, however this dive is not for inexperienced divers. You would always go with one of our experienced Divemasters or Instructors from the resort as currents can be quite strong. Divers would need to be minimum of advanced divers and we would need to see how you dive in Moalboal first. Price and availability depends on the number of divers. Normally we do minimum two dives at Sumilon Island, sometimes 3, taking lunch on the boat before returning via road transport to the resort. If you are interested in diving Sumilon Island please either email us in advance or let us know when you arrive in resort and we will see what is possible.
For those not wishing to make the 90 minute journey by car to reach the ferry terminal for Sumilon Island we can recommend the Sumilon Bluewater Island Resort as a good place to spend a night or two to take in the diving in a relaxed schedule.
Alternatively have a look at some of our diving packages
