In October 2025 I did a two week long dive trip to the Philippines with my friend John. We spent both weeks at Anilao staying at Buceo Anilao Dive Resort.

There are dozens of dive sites located within 20 minutes run from the resort.

When we visited the first time in 2023, unfortunately we had a Super Typhoon hit the northern Philippines when we were there, so the Coast Guard banned all boats and diving later in the week. As such, there were many sites we could not visit till this later trip.

Koala is located about 4.5 kilometres north-west from the resort. A GPS mark for the dive spot is 13° 42' 58.396"N 120° 52' 18.440"E (using WGS84 as the datum). I have no idea why it has such an Australian name.

A satellite photo from Google Earth that shows the location of the dive site which is top left. Buceo Anilao Resort at bottom right

The dive boat anchors a short distance off the shore in about 6 metres. Once in the bottom, we head west deep down a steep slope to 24 metres. We then head south and encounter a wall that drops to 28 to 30 metres. We head into a slight current. There are some barrel sponges, two large gorgonias (no pygmy sea horses) and some small overhangs along this wall.

There are lots of fish, tropical species as well. We see Moorish idols, short-finned bannerfish, various butterflyfish and thousands of niger triggerfish (also called blue or red-tooth). We also see large and small spotted moray eels, many species of nudibranchs and some shrimp and crabs.

A barrel sponge	Part of the wall

The wall runs for about 50 metres and then becomes a slope again. A bit after the wall we come to the top and turn around and head back towards the boat. There are more barrel sponges on the top. We also see some blennies in hard corals and also a shrimp in a hard coral. At the end we see a turtle.

The gorgonias	A white/grey giant anglerfish

We finished our dive in the shallows under the boat where there are some coral outcrops. In October the water temperature was 28C and the visibility was only a very good 18 to 20 metres. A very good dive site.

MORE PHOTOGRAPHS

I think this is Nembrotha chamberlaini	A quite colourful nudibranch
A shrimp on a bubble anemone	A shrimp in a hard coral
A blenny in a hard coral, looks so happy	Another blenny in a hard coral
A Moorish idol	A trumpetfish