Scuba diving - Philippines - Home of the El Galleon resort.

Not too long ago Puerto Galera was a small fishing village on the North East tip of Mindoro, doing very well with the villagers living off the abundant fish here. Then around twenty years ago, the Philippine Government discovered just how many species of fish and corals there are here and declared the entire area a Marine Reserve. You could be forgiven for thinking that this would have destroyed Puerto Galera as a village, but that would be far from true.

Puerto Galera became the premier scuba diving location in the Philippines.

The Philippine Department of Tourism became involved and convinced the villagers to diversify and to become involved in tourism. Puerto Galera had two big things going in it's favour it's beauty and the marine sanctuary.

It was around this time that the El Galleon resort came into existence along with Asia Divers who have been catering for top class vacations ever since. The El Galleon resort is a five star resort just a couple of hours South of Manila, providing unashamed luxury at prices that most Westerners would expect to pay for a two star hotel. Hotel rooms in the resort start for as little as $51 a night.

We think it unlikely we could show you just how nice our resort is with static pictures and so we have created a series of short movies here that will enable you to see for yourself what we have to offer.

Situated right at the beach as the movie on the right will show you, our rooms are luxurious and yet designed to blend in and be a part of the natural lush vegetation. Here you can relax and let the stresses of everyday life wash away.

The food at the resort is to an extremely high standard and you can chose Oriental or Western food. There is an extensive menu providing everything from a sandwich to full gourmet meals.

Click to see our waters.

Dive Puerto Galera - On Mindoro island.

The diving here is unquestionably the best of anywhere in Oriental Mindoro and some would say all Asia.

Part of the El Galleon beach resort is Asia Divers which is the dive school within the dive resort.

We should tell you right off that here we have more varieties of fish than can be found in the entire Red Sea as well as a greater variety of corals than can be found in the Great Barrier Reef and there is one very good reason why this is so. There is an ocean current that is born in mid Pacific and flows like a gentle river right past Puerto Galera called the Verde Island Passage and this current brings very oxygen and nutrient rich water to us. Verde Island Passage

The Asia divers diving school is highly respected by PADI and is one of only two diving schools in the Philippines qualified to teach at all levels of scuba diving from novice right up to PADI Instructor.

Here you can dive with a range of different gas mixes which include Air, Nitrox and Trimix. You can also hire re-breathers or underwater scooters for added fun.

Technical diving.

Tech Asia is a part of our resort and trains with a variety of gasses to enable people to learn the more sophisticated aspects of scuba diving and to explore some of the hundreds of wrecks round the coast of the Philippines.

Tech Asia trains on the use of Nitrox and Trimix, enabling much deeper dives that are possible on air alone and hires equipment like scooters for your underwater fun.

Tech Asia is the foremost technical dive school on Mindoro.

Other things to do beside dive in Puerto Galera.

Whilst scuba is undoubtedly the most popular pass time here, we would hate you to thing this is all there is to do here. After all, no matter how keen you might be on the water you will inevitably spend a lot more time out of the sea than in it.

You could chose to lie around the resort pool supping a beer or cocktail or do something a little more energetic, such as going on a picnic, a boat trip, play golf or even pan for gold in the streams behind El Galleon.

Then there is the small town of Sabang literally five minutes stroll along the beach. This is one of the most swinging towns anywhere on Mindoro. There are shops, a market, numerous bars, restaurants and at least half a dozen discos making it certainly the center of night life in Puerto Galera.

See the amazing fish and water

Things other than scuba diving.

Click to see our equipment pages.

Asia Divers for all your dive equipment

You can hire all the equipment for your dives when you are here, but more than this, Asia Divers is among the largest suppliers of dive equipment in the entire Philippines.

We have dive equipment stores in Manila, Boracay, Cebu. Puerto Galera and because of the high turnover we have in equipment you will always find special offers on out site for both new products and end of line sales.

You can see how the weather is in Puerto Galera,Mindoro at any time as we run a webcam 24/7

Remember though that the time in the Philippines is GMT + 7

Any questions about our resort, scuba diving in the Philippines or problems e-mail us