Philippines - Bohol - Cabilao

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Cabilao is a small island on to West coast of Bohol. From Tagbilaran, the capital of Bohol and point of entry to Bohol, either by plane or ferry, it´s a 90min car drive along the West coast, followed by a short Bangka boat ride. After staying in many backpacker places, I selected a more upscale resort under German ownership. An amazing place with various accommodations and a top dive sites just in front of the resort. Even the cheapest room available, a treehouse with just a fan and a cold water shower was a massive upgrade compared to my basic rooms in Coron and Apo Island.

But apart from diving (or snorkeling), there aren´t much options. Neither shopping, party nor white sand beaches. But who cares? Especially, if there is an amazing wall starting in 15m depth, going down to 50m, just few minutes boat rides away. The seascape is fantastic, but the visibility was limited due to several storms in the past weeks. Therefore I went “Critter-hunting”. Armed with a macro lens and a private dive guide to find all the ultra-small underwater creatures I started picturing this unique environment. Normally, I´m no big fan of spiders, insects and snails, but their counterparts underwater are amazingly colored and shaped. Some of those tiny shrimps are so small, that during the dive you only see a fraction of their beauty, but once captured with the camera all the details reveal (if in focus, and for macro photography this means, that the slightest movement of the camera or the shrimp leads to an unsharp picture. By slightest movement I mean millimeters). Sometimes it takes dozens of shots and quite a while, until the desired picture is taken. As you can´t do as part of a diving group, a private guide is essential. I lots of countries this would strain your wallet, but in the Philippines, this service costs less than 10 USD per dive.

To the pictures

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