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Dive Review of Kasai Village in
Philippines/Moalboal, Cebu

Kasai Village, Jun, 2010,

by Robin A Masson, NY, US (Reviewer Reviewer 6 reports). Report 5681.

No photos available at this time

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Accommodations 4 stars Food 5 stars
Service and Attitude 5 stars Environmental Sensitivity 5 stars
Dive Operation 5 stars Shore Diving 4 stars
Snorkeling N/A
Value for $$ 5 stars
Beginners 5 stars
Advanced 5 stars
Comments We spent a week at the beginning of June, 2010 at Kasai Village resort in Moalboal, in the Central Visayas. Kasai is a pretty little dive lodge in the middle of nowhere, 3 hours’ drive south of Cebu, the city into which you fly. There are 13 rooms, a dining room, bar/rec area, pool, and dive center, and that’s it! The food and service in the dining room were fantastic and the staff was warm, friendly, and eager to please. Their motto is “come as a guest, leave as a friend.” And that’s exactly what we did. We recommend the full board plan: not only is the food delicious (close to gourmet), beautifully presented, and from a wide-ranging menu, but the place is waaaaay off the beaten track, and it would have been a real pain to have to go out to eat. The wine list wasn't too good, but it was ok.
From the first check-out dive we confirmed that it’s definitely worth traveling ½ way around the world for this diving. The reefs are so healthy, and teeming with fish, every square inch is covered with hard or soft coral, sponges and anemones, and hiding in the spaces are tiny crabs, fish, nudibranchs, and other small critters. There were so many fish that there were times the schools were so thick you couldn’t see through them! Just a partial list of what we saw:

* Ornate Ghost Pipefish
* Giant Frogfish
* Blue Ringed Octopus
* Warty Frogfish
* 5 different kinds of Anemonefish
* Sea Moths
* Threadfin Anthias
* Pygmy Seahorses
* All kinds of little shrimp & crabs hiding in anemones, on fans & on Crinoids
* New butterflyfish and damselfish
* A gazillion nudibranchs
* Dascylluses
* Moorish Idols
* Bannerfish
* Razorfish
* and much, much more!

Boat diving is from "bancas", long narrow boats with arching outriggers on each side – the basic configuration of most boats around there, from the smallest fishing boat to the larger dive boats. There is an awning strung across a pole in the middle for shade, and some benches to sit on. It’s perfectly serviceable with only two divers aboard, but I can imagine that with six, it would get quite crowded. The boat crew handled our gear and handed our cameras to us once we were in the water, and were happy to haul my gear out of the water for me in order to save my arthritic knees. The dive sites were within 15 minutes of the resort, with the exception of Pescador Island, which took closer to 30 minutes. Each dive was at least an hour long, and ended only because my husband ran out of air – often the DM, Mike, would stay down with me for an extra 15 minutes or so, till I got my fill of the shallows. Visibility was huge, probably 100 feet, and the water was calm every day, making entry and exit a breeze. Most of the dives were on a wall, with the top of the reef as shallow as 20-10 feet, so we could do our “safety stop” tooling along the top of the reef, where light played through the wavelets over the soft corals, anemones and sponges and little damselfish and dascyllus skipped between the finger coral stems.
The “dive shop” consisted of concrete benches with individual showers [hoses with spigots –warm water from the sun], separate big rinse tanks for gear and photo equipment, and shaded rods for hanging stuff to dry. Basic but met our needs. Rental gear was fairly new and well-maintained. Nitrox was available for a reasonable flat rate for the entire week.
Websites Kasai Village   

Reporter and Travel

Dive Experience 251-500 dives
Where else diving All over the Caribbean, Australia, Thailand, Philippines, Sea of Cortez.
Closest Airport Getting There

Dive Conditions

Weather sunny, dry Seas calm, no currents
Water Temp 81-84°F / 27-29°C Wetsuit Thickness 5
Water Visibility 50-100 Ft/ 15-30 M

Dive Policy

Dive own profile yes
Enforced diving restrictions No deco, come up with as close to 500# as you can.
Liveaboard? no Nitrox Available? yes

What I Saw

Sharks 1 or 2 Mantas None
Dolphins None Whale Sharks None
Turtles > 2 Whales None
Corals 5 stars Tropical Fish 5 stars
Small Critters 5 stars Large Fish 2 stars
Large Pelagics 2 stars

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Subject Matter 5 stars Boat Facilities 3 stars
Overall rating for UWP's 4 stars Shore Facilities 3 stars
UW Photo Comments The dive shop on shore offered a large camera-dedicated rinse tank. The staff would transport your camera gear to the boat if you wanted, or you could carry it yourself. The boat had a dry area for cameras, and a rinse bucket, but nothing fancy, and it would have been very crowded if more than 3 photographers aboard.
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Note: The information here was reported by the author above, but has NOT been reviewed nor edited by Undercurrent prior to posting on our website. Please report any major problems by writing to us and referencing the report number above.

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