Southern Leyte — Sogod Bay

Diving runs off outrigger bangkas from a handful of small resorts, most of them strung along the shore around Padre Burgos near the mouth of the bay. The water is wide enough that a day is planned as a direction rather than a list: two dives down one shore, lunch on a beach or back at base, and something shallow to finish. The boats are open and simple, and house-reef entries straight off the beach fill the gaps between trips.

The fringing shelf is narrow, so the drop-off often begins within swimming distance of the beach and continues past recreational limits, broken by overhangs, cracks and occasional sand chutes. Sites separate by how much water moves across them: exposed points and the offshore ground pick up current and the fish that follow it, while the tucked-in stretches of shoreline are slow and silty, and are better used as macro and night ground.

Whale shark season reshapes a stay rather than slotting into it. The encounter means a separate boat run down to Pintuyan, on Panaon Island across the mouth of the bay, and between the travel and the early start it generally costs a diving day. Timing matters at the other end of the year too, since July to October carries typhoon risk and rougher water; the bay stays sheltered, but the crossings and the offshore ground are the first things to go. It suits divers comfortable on a wall in some current, happy to spend half a trip on macro, and unbothered by a long transfer in.