Dive Review of Crystal Blue Resort in
Philippines/Anilao

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Crystal Blue Resort: "Great muck diving, great photo instruction, great price.", May, 2023, by David E Reubush, VA, US ( Top Contributor 71 reports with 36 Helpful votes). Report 12439.
Photos Submitted with this Report Click on an image to see an enlarged version and captions
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	I am a fan of muck diving and macro photography. Anilao had been on my bucket list for years, but, somehow, I had never had the opportunity to check it out. So, when my dive buddy called and asked me if I wanted to join him on a BlueWater trip to Crystal Blue to attend a photo workshop given by Mike Bartick I jumped at the chance. It was, definitely, the right decision. Mike is, by far, the best underwater photography teacher I have ever encountered. Sometimes it seemed like we were trying to drink from a fire hose, but all the information was clear, concise, and was information we could use to improve our skill set. Crystal Blue, about 2 hours west of Manila by van, is one of a number of resorts arrayed along a hillside in Anilao. At the highest level of the resort are the guest rooms. At the mid-level are the office, dining room, and camera room. The camera room is particularly notable. It is air-conditioned and every spot has a cushioned pad, a microfiber towel, a power strip, and a fluorescent light. At the lowest level are the gear storage, gear-up area, rinse tanks, dive shop, and boat landing. After trudging up and down the hill more than a few times the first couple of days I quickly got organized such that trips up and down were minimized. One thing that I wish someone had told me is that the shore is rocky. My 3 mm booties did not do well walking on the rocks. I would highly recommend hard-soled booties and will take them the next time I go. I enjoyed the food. Lunch and dinner were a buffet, generally with a choice of chicken, pork, beef, fish and/or shell fish. For breakfast, in addition to the buffet, eggs, French toast, pancakes etc. could be ordered. The staff was very attentive and It did not take long for them to learn your beverage selections and they would generally bring what you wanted without being asked. Soft drinks and alcohol were extra. Hot and iced tea, fruit juices and similar were free. The room was plenty big, the beds comfortable, and the bathroom was inside the air-conditioning. This allowed us to avoid the mosquitoes when going to the bathroom after dark as contrasted with resorts where the bathrooms are outside the A/C. Diving is done from bangkas, which are big, covered canoes with outriggers. The ones Crystal Blue has take 4 divers, a dive master, and utilize 2 crew. Entry is done with a back roll. At the end of the dive you take off your BC, pass it to the crew, then take off your fins, hand them up, and climb up the ladder into the boat. Most dives were an hour with an hour surface interval after the first dive. The typical schedule would be breakfast at 6:30, class at 7:00, diving a bit after 8, back after 12, afternoon dives at about 2. We always did 2 dives in the morning. Two dives were always available in the afternoon. Some days we did both and some days only 1 afternoon dive. With all the dive resorts in the area most sites had more than one boat. Most sites did not have buoys so the first boat there would drop anchor and the other boats would tie up to that boat or to each other. While there were always a number of divers in the water we rarely had a problem with interference. Since Anilao is only 2 hours from Manila weekends were particularly busy. The photo school was only a week and we stayed an extra 3 days. For those 3 days it was just my buddy and me in the boat and we ended up going out at 7:30 so that we beat all the other boats to whatever site we went to. This allowed us to dive with nobody else in the water for most of the dive and then we did our surface interval while the folks from the other boats were in the water. The visibility was not great. I estimate that it was around 30 ft., which meant that you had to stay aware of where the dive master and your compatriots were so that you did not get lost in the murk. The water temperature varied a couple of degrees above and below 80 degrees. I generally wore my 3 mm wetsuit plus a very well used 3/5 mm hooded vest and was fine. Near the end of our trip a cold up-welling occurred which brought better visibility, but I had to shift to a 5/7 mm hooded vest to stay comfortable. We generally dove at sites with little to no current. However, we were there through the full moon. For a couple of days before and after the full moon it was difficult to find sites with no current, but the dive master did a good job of finding us sites with as little current as possible. It was interesting that, while there is a map with sites identified on the wall of the dive area, the dive master did not mention the name of most of the sites we went to. The exceptions were the house reef, house muck site, the “wreck” across the bay, and the “pier” which was a distance away and the night dive site. I will note that Mike is one of the pioneers of black water diving and it is available, although my buddy and I did not try it on this trip. While most of the sites are black sand/mud there are a few reef sites, so that you can find a variety of creatures during your visit. The amount of diving which occurs in Anilao has the benefit that many, normally skittish creatures, just ignore you. I got some great shots of both spearing and smashing mantis shrimp which would pose at the entrance of their burrow and let me shoot away. The wreck across the bay was home to a large variety of flat worms among other things. The dive we generally did before the wreck had a sea fan with a number of bargibanti pygmy seahorses on it as well as some frogfish at the site. At one of the muck sites Mike had several glass bottles arrayed across the bottom. Each had a pair of small yellow gobies in residence. Each diver got a bottle to try different lighting techniques with one of the gobies posing. The house reef had a dark red paddle-flap scorpionfish at about 90 ft. In my 30 years of diving this was only the second paddle-flap that I had seen. The pier site was a great night dive with many coconut octopus, mimic octopus, cuttlefish of various descriptions, and frogfish. We really enjoyed the diving at Crystal Blue and are already talking about returning. On top of the great diving it was a bargain. For our 10 nights with up to 4 dives a day, the photo school, all meals, nitrox, and the van from Manila the cost was just over $2500.
Websites	Crystal Blue Resort
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	Over 1000 dives
Where else diving	Australia, Belize, Bimini, Bonaire, Caymans, Curacao, Fiji, Galapagos, Indonesia (Wakatobi, Raja Ampat, Komodo, Lembeh, Bali, Banda Sea, Ambon), Philippines, Red Sea, Solomon Islands, Southern Bahamas, St. Thomas, Turks & Caicos
Closest Airport	Manila	Getting There	Basically fly to Manila and take the Crystal Blue shuttle to the resort. I will note that I had more delayed flights/almost missed connections on this trip than I have ever had. One of my bags missed the outbound connection so I missed the first several dives until the bag caught up with me.
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny	Seas	choppy, currents
Water Temp	78-83°F / 26-28°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	25-35 Ft/ 8-11 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	Don't do anything dumb.
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	None	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	None	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish	N/A
Large Pelagics	N/A
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities
UW Photo Comments	Crew carefully handled your camera from shore to boat and return. Large rinse tanks with adjacent high pressure air to blow off the housing. Camera room air-conditioned. Each spot had pad, micro fiber towel, power strip, and fluorescent light. One of the best camera rooms I have encountered.

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Dive Review of Crystal Blue Resort in Philippines/Anilao

Crystal Blue Resort: "Great muck diving, great photo instruction, great price.", May, 2023,

Photos Submitted with this Report

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Crystal Blue Resort in
Philippines/Anilao