Diving For Treasure In Dumaguete

Black sand dive sites, artificial reefs and seagrass beds. Flamboyant cuttlefish, seahorses, frogfish and nudibranchs of all colours. Dive in with Brandi Mueller as she uncovers the underwater treasures that make Dumaguete a marine paradise and an ideal location for muck diving

- Brandi Mueller

There is nothing more satisfying than diving in black sand looking for treasure. Diving just several feet off the beach of Atlantis Resort at Dumaguete, in the Philippines, I find my eyes zooming in on the sand to examine individual grains for something that looks just slightly different. My eyes scan around for something fantastic, and then suddenly, what was just sand a few seconds ago morphs into a seahorse or a frogfish or some other wonder of the muck.

Coming across a muck creature like a flamboyant cuttlefish, on your own, is rewarding but it is usually the exceptional dive guides that point out the one thing you’ve been searching for – like a teeny Costasiella kuroshimae nudibranch – and seeing that gem is almost as good as finding it yourself.

Some of the best muck diving is found within the Coral Triangle – a trianglular area shared between the Philippines, the Solomon Islands and Indonesia. Often referred to as the rainforest of the ocean, this “triangle” has the most biodiverse marine life in the world. Dumaguete – located in Dauin on Negros Island (part of the Visayas), the fourth largest island in the Philippines – falls within the area.

Muck Diving