Guest User
January 21, 2024
We dived with Blue Ribbon in Jan-24, staying at a nearby hotel but often ate at Blue Ribbon’s restaurant. Diving It was my first trip to the Philippines, and Anilao was definitely the right choice for a good combo of macro and coral dive sites. A smallish dive centre, with a good set up and some great dive guides who did their best to find us all the best critters. We got to know the other guests there too (some people stayed just a few days before moving on to other destinations) whereas we stayed in Anilao for 2 weeks, so we got to chat to a fair few people. As well as our day boat dives, we did a couple of night dives at Anilao Pier which I’d highly recommend - everything comes out at night, and we were lucky enough to see hummingbird bobtail squid, hairy frogfish, and various ghost pipefish. Sea temp in Jan was chillier than I’d like (25-26 most days) but with my 3.5mm wetsuit and hood it was just warm enough, next time I’d come later in the year for less exposure gear. They do rent 3mm suits as well as pretty much every other piece of dive kit, which looked in good nick - we just tend to bring all our own. Restaurant We ate breakfast at Blue Ribbon every day pre morning dive, both the American and English breakfasts were very tasty, and good coffee too. Donna the waitress was brilliant and always remembered how we like our food & drinks, in fact she really makes the place. We ate there most evenings too (which involved braving the MANY steps up from BR to the road twice a day - which certainly kept us fit!) which is testament to Blue Ribbon’s food quality. I especially liked the Hawaiian pizza 😃 Vibe Jonathan the owner was very friendly and was really responsive to any issues raised, which was appreciated. We enjoyed seeing the resident dogs everyday, Shadow, Billy and Mushka, as well as next door’s golden retriever puppy who I think was called Bobo - who lolloped about and was quite entertaining. Thanks Jon and team for your hospitality and dive/photography chats!