Solitude Acacia
Solitude Acacia Resort and Dive Center is located in the middle of the Mabini-Tingloy Pensinsula, north of Puerto Galera and West of the Verde Island Passage. This area is also more commonly referred to as simply Anilao, ans renowned for its spectacular diving with most of the popular dive sites in the area accessible via the local boats (bangka) in 30 minutes or less.
The rooms and facilities of this small dive-dedicated resort are built around a century-old Acacia tree that sits in the middle of the resort, shading the restaurant and pool area. At Solitude Acacia Resort, the staff will take care of your any need from diving arrangements to special food requests to make sure you get to focus on what you came to Anilao for--- diving.
The resort features 6 standard rooms, 4 Deluxe Rooms and 6 Deluxe Suites. There’s a buffet-style restaurant and bar that serves Filipino and international cuisine. The dive center is equipped for all your diving needs.
Standard Rooms (6)
Standard rooms are bright, clean and comfortable and perfect for two people or singles. They feature a queen-size bed and spacious bathroom.
Deluxe Rooms (4)
These rooms are more spacious and also have a queen size bed and large private bathroom. The design is clean, bright and modern.
Deluxe Suites (6)
These large rooms offer up 2 queen size beds and a large private bathroom. The sea views from these rooms are impressive.
All rooms are inclusive of full board meals and light afternoon snacks, unlimited coffee, tea, hot chocolate, juice and iced tea.
Diving!
Acacia’s Dive Shop has some of the best dive crew in Anilao who are great spotters specialized to assist underwater photographers to find those rare critters. The boat and land support crew are trained to handle all your equipment - cameras, tech gear, DPV's and even rebreathers with competency and utmost care. For those wanting to learn to dive, they offer PADI and GUE courses with some of the best instructors from Manila. For divers looking for more advanced adventures, they have twin (manifolded) cylinders available for rent, along with backplates, wings, deco/stage bottles and regulators available to rent.
ANILAO DIVE SITES
Anilao definitely isn’t just for macro photography. The area also offers some great reef and wall dives, sea mounds and coral gardens. Some of these sites are best experienced when the currents are picking up. Though not guaranteed, there are also occasional sightings of sharks, manta rays and eagle rays.
Among the most popular sites in Anilao are the following:
Twin Rocks – Home to a great school of jackfish, this site is at an easy 20m with a vast coral garden.
Cathedral – One of the most famous of all Anilao’s dives, the site is so named because of a concrete cross that sits at 15m in between 2 huge boulders teeming with marine life. The cross was brought down in the 80’s after it was blessed by Pope John Paul II.
Secret Bay – At some point, Secret Bay may have defined the kind of diving one could expect to do in Anilao—muck, with the craziest assortment of rare critters to be found. Most of the critters can be found at around 5m, but you can go as deep as 30m and still find things of great interest.
Basura – Like Secret Bay, Basura (which means trash in Filipino), is a favorite among underwater photographers. Situated on the shore of one of the local communities, the site was so named after the trash that found its way there from the human inhabitants. This however, no longer holds true as the local community had taken a stand to protect the site. The trash is no longer there, but the critters remain.
Beatriz Rock - A sea mound beside Sombrero Island, the shallow reef starts a mere 6m with a sandy bottom at around 20m. Best with slight current and the bright sun.
