Tambisaan

Tambisaan is on Boracay's east side — the back-beach coast — and when we dive it is decided by the wind. Boracay's monsoon reverses roughly every six months: when the Habagat gives way to the Amihan, the weather swings round to the west coast and we move the boats to the sheltered east side. So Tambisaan and Laguna are our low-season reefs, while through the high season we dive the White Beach side almost exclusively, with the occasional run out to Crocodile Island.

That makes it sound like a fallback, and it is anything but. Tambisaan is one of the best turtle dives on the island — it is not unusual to find seven to nine turtles in a single spot here, and sea turtles are comfortably the most-recorded animal in our logs from this reef, with hawksbill turtles alongside them. Around them we log nudibranchs, pufferfish, lionfish, crabs, cleaner shrimp, fusiliers, trumpetfish, gobies and lizardfish over coral that stays in noticeably good condition, precisely because the site is dived far less than the west coast.

At 8–17 m in calm, shallow water it is comfortable Open Water diving and an unhurried fun dive — with a realistic chance of the best turtle encounter of your trip. The boat ride is about twenty minutes, the longest of our regular Boracay sites.