It’s no secret, that the scuba diving in the Philippines ranks amongst the best in the world. With around 7000 islands right in the middle of the coral triangle, it’s inevitable that the Philippines rank high as a destination for scuba divers. The Visayas, where our base of operations is located, is ideally suited for all levels of divers. Whether you’re already an experienced diver or one about to embark on the journey of becoming one through the PADI open water course you’ll find dive sites that will stun you.

The vast majority of our dive sites are beautiful coral reefs. On these reefs, you will find an abundance of turtles, many species of fish, and tons of interesting invertebrates. Most of our dive sites are in the municipalities of Dauin and Zamboanguita, areas which have become increasingly popular over the past few years due to the incredible amounts of rare macro life. Though ship wrecks are abundant throughout the Philippines, most of the wrecks near to us are at depths much too deep for recreational and even technical divers.

There’s a wealth of different dive sites and environments to explore near us, and as a volunteer with the project you’ll have a unique chance to dive in some areas very few have seen – you may even get to go exploratory diving. When you volunteer with Marine Conservation Philippines, you will be diving at specific locations required for our various projects. From our base in Zamboanguita, we’re helping local stakeholders monitor a network of marine protected areas and other survey sites. This stretches from Dumaguete in the north to Siaton in the south, about 50 km in total.  Volunteers help us gather the data on biodiversity needed to form the framework for future conservation policies for municipalities and government agencies we work with.

You could also be helping with construction of artificial reefs, do reef clean ups or help recover lost fishtraps or remove ghostnets. From time to time we use our MCP RIB speedboat to conduct dives, but as most of the diving we undertake is coastal, we generally reach the dive sites in our trucks and walk in from shore.

Every second month or so, we try to let all volunteers unwind on a daytrip to Apo Island, to enjoy some amazing diving on their day off without reels, slates, cameras or other scientific apparel.