Pescador Island is an island located in the Tanon straight, the name Pescador is derived from the former Spanish Colonial heritage and the abundance of fish swimming on the reefs. The giant sardine ball made Pescador world famous for both divers and snorkellers alike, of late the main school has been camped in Panagsama, with smaller off shoots still visible at Pescador. Despite this Pescador still offers two distinct fantastic dive sites on the Northeast side and the Southwest side. With the Southwest side being commonly known locally as Cathedral.
Pescador Island is approximately a 20-30 minute boat ride from the resort. On the Northeast side of Pescador Island there are several large rocks and coral heads which break the surface. Here the reef plateau slopes down to around 8 – 10 metres where it then drops away vertically into the abyss. The top 15 metres is teeming with life, including several turtles making it a great spot for divers and snorkellers alike.
On the Southwest side there is a large swim through cavern which exits after an ascent of a few metres into a beautiful soft coral garden. Turtles are also found in this spot.
Pescador Island is widely regarded as one of the best dive sites in the Philippines, offering sometimes up to 50m visibility, sublime underwater caverns and the world famous Cathedral dive site.
The depth on this side ranges from 5m to 65 metres/ 200 feet, visibility 20 till 50 metres. There is an unbelievable variety of soft and hard corals, frog fish, schools of lion fish, barracudas, tuna and snappers. The highlight of this divesite is a magnificent cave that has a heavenly vertical swim through cave offering views of the surface so it’s easy to see why it’s called the Cathedral.
The Cathedral entrance starts at 28m entering into a vast chamber where sunlight shines in. The chimney continues to around 16m depth depending on tides, where the famous photos of the Cathedral are usually taken.
Occasionally you will meet sharks and at the north east side there is a plateau where you can find nudibranchs, shrimps and lots of other small marine life. The wall is covered with soft coral which offers a home to octopus, moray eels, snake-eels, nudibranchs and many more.
Pescador Island East starts on the plateau at 5 m till 65 metres with 20 to 40 metres visibility. The dive starts at a plateau that turns into gentle slope covered in a plethora of hard and soft corals before reaching the second drop off at around 20m depth. If you take a good look, you’ll find a lot of scorpion fish, razor fish, sweetlips, potato groupers, snappers, schools of tuna and barracuda. The dive ends on a at the North or South side of the Island depending on currents. Look carefully and you’ll find a lot of small marine life here. In particular and abundance of Elephant Ear sponges on this side of the Island hide several Giant Frogfish.
Pescador South is a small site on the South side of the Island, starting on the plateau at 5m, this dive site is a smooth wall dive down to 60m depth before reaching a sandy slope. The main highlight of this dive site are the Spanish Dancers in residence on this side of the Island. Small caverns can be found on this dive site as well as small marine life hiding in the caverns and corals along the wall.
