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Snorkeling and Scuba Diving at Apo Island Marine Sanctuary
I dove the site twice and was moved by the grandeur of the coral formations. Entering from the nearby site, Kang-Oran, is especially impressive since you move from a very impressive wall to a sloping mass of coral structures that are on the scale of California's Redwoods. They make most other coral reefs look like second or third growth forests in comparison. I've been diving in the best that Indonesia, Palau and Fiji have to offer but nowhere have I seen hard coral structures to match these.
You can't drive to this location. There are no roads and no cars on the small island, but there are coral gardens older and more majestic than Wakatobi's.
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Ed Kenney
Dec 26, 2009, 12:00 AM
scuba
The marine sanctuary features huge coral structures that would be considered 'old growth' even by Sulawesi, Taveuni or Palauan standards. If you like clownfish, there's at least two whole cities of them here. Just outside the MPA is a cave holding a java moray longer than 8 feet. Nearby is another cave with an upper brow of a wall featuring more nudibranchs and colorful inverts per foot than just about anywhere else. Perhaps Sinandigan Wall in Puerto Galera, Long Island in Washington's San Juans or Gili Biaha in Bali come close. And this is not the best dive on Apo Island. Coconut Pt. holds that distinction, at least during the week we were there - walls of inverts, crevices loaded with juveniles, coral colors we'd never seen before and hundreds of pelagics in the current above.
Originally posted on shorediving.com
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