Ticao Island — San Jacinto Masbate Manta Diving

The waters off Ticao Island in Masbate hold one of the Philippines' four great manta-ray hotspots: the legendary Manta Bowl in the Ticao Pass. This full-day dive trip takes certified divers to a submerged seamount rising from the deep, where reef manta rays gather at a natural cleaning station to be groomed by smaller fish, gliding gracefully past divers below.

Sitting in the San Jacinto area within the Ticao-Burias Pass Protected Seascape, Manta Bowl tops out at around 14 to 23 metres and channels nutrient-rich currents that draw not only mantas but also pelagic action and the occasional bigger visitor, in waters that overlap with nearby Donsol's whale sharks. Long-term monitoring has logged thousands of manta sightings here, making encounters genuinely possible year-round and especially during the December to May window.

This is exhilarating big-animal diving with current, negative entries and the use of reef hooks, so Advanced certification and recent experience are recommended. Hovering motionless while a manta with a wingspan of several metres sweeps overhead is an experience few divers ever forget.