El Galleon Beach Resort & Asia Divers

El Galleon Beach Resort & Asia Divers: Your Gateway to Puerto Galera's Underwater Wonders

Nestled on the serene shores of Small La Laguna Beach in Barangay Sabang, El Galleon Beach Resort offers a seamless blend of comfortable beachfront accommodation and world-class diving. Paired with the renowned Asia Divers, a PADI 5 Star Career Development Centre and the highest verified PADI tier in Puerto Galera, this resort is a diver's dream, providing direct access from your room to the dive boat.

Accommodation: Comfort by the Sea

El Galleon Beach Resort features 30 air-conditioned rooms, recently renovated to offer a fresh, comfortable, and modern experience. Guests can choose from a variety of room types to suit different needs and budgets, from cozy Budget Rooms to spacious Penthouse Suites and luxurious Waimea Luxury Houses. Options include:

• Budget Rooms: Practical and comfortable, featuring a queen-size bed or two single beds, air-conditioning, and a mini-bar.
• Poolside Economy/Deluxe Rooms: Offering comfort by the pool with queen beds, air-conditioning, mini-bar, and flat-screen TV.
• Family Rooms: Capable of accommodating extra beds, these rooms come with a queen-size bed, air-conditioning, and comfortable bathrooms.
• Seaview Rooms: Highly requested, these well-appointed rooms offer stunning waterfront views of Sabang Bay, with king-size or twin beds.
• Penthouse Suite: A luxurious one-bedroom apartment with spectacular sea views, functioning as a home away from home.

All rooms come equipped with air conditioning, a mini-bar, room safe, and private bathrooms with hot water. Many also include a kettle with complimentary tea and coffee, and flat-screen cable TV.

Diving Services: Asia Divers PADI CDC

Asia Divers, the Philippines' first PADI Career Development Center (CDC), boasts over 35 years of operation and is renowned for its high standard of teaching. They offer a comprehensive range of PADI courses, catering to all skill levels:

• Recreational Courses: From PADI Discover Scuba Diving and Bubblemaker for children (maximum depth of 2 m for Bubblemaker) to Open Water Diver and Advanced Open Water Diver.
• Specialty Courses: Divers can enhance their skills with specialties such as Night, Deep, Navigation, Naturalist, Drift, Multilevel, Photography, Wreck, and Enriched Air Nitrox.
• Professional Ratings: Asia Divers provides training up to Divemaster and Instructor levels, making it an ideal choice for those pursuing a diving career.
• Technical Diving: The center also supports technical diving, catering to advanced divers seeking further challenges.

The dive center is strategically located on a spacious jetty, allowing divers to gear up and step directly onto their allocated boat. With a modern facility, private pier, large gear storage area, and a dedicated camera room with specific rinse tanks, Asia Divers ensures a smooth and efficient diving experience. Diving is conducted in small groups (six or less) from speedboats or traditional Bangka (outrigger) boats. They offer at least five scheduled dives daily, including night dives, with a choice of dive sites at each time.

Dive Sites & Conditions

Puerto Galera is celebrated as one of Asia's premier diving destinations, offering a diverse array of over 30 dive sites, many within a 10 to 15-minute boat ride from the resort. The region is part of the Verde Island Passage, often cited as the global center of marine biodiversity. Water temperatures typically range from 26°C to 29°C year-round, with visibility often between 15 to 30 meters.

• Escarceo Point: Known for its exhilarating drift dives, Escarceo Point features pristine coral slopes, stepped drop-offs, and a second wall teeming with diverse marine life. Common sightings include blue spotted stingrays, whip corals, scorpionfish, octopus, and schools of mackerel, tuna, and trevallies.
• Verde Island Passage: Just a 25-minute speedboat ride away, Verde Island offers world-class diving with dense hard and soft corals, sea fans, and abundant reef fish. It's a destination that rewards both wide-angle and macro photographers, with sightings of sea turtles, humphead wrasse, giant groupers, and various pelagics. While some sites are current-driven and best suited for advanced divers, the surrounding area offers gentler options.
• Sabang Bay Wrecks: Located very close to the resort, the Sabang Wrecks include three deliberately scuttled boats adorned with colorful hard coral, sponges, and anemones. The Alma Jane, a 30-meter cargo ship scuttled in 2003, sits upright at a maximum depth of 30 meters and is a popular site for deep and wreck certification. These sites are home to batfish, lionfish, surgeonfish, nudibranchs, and various macro critters.

Beyond these highlights, divers can explore numerous other sites featuring coral gardens, muck diving, walls, and channels, with opportunities to spot reef sharks, moray eels, frogfish, and a vast array of small reef fish.

Resort Amenities & Atmosphere

El Galleon Beach Resort provides a range of amenities to enhance your stay:

• Dining: The on-site international cuisine restaurant, Arthur, offers breakfast, lunch, and dinner with a beachfront setting.
• Bars: Enjoy a refreshing drink at one of three bars, including the lively "The Point Bar" situated above the dive center, offering magnificent views of Sabang Beach.
• Pools: The resort features an outdoor swimming pool and a children's pool, along with sun loungers for relaxation.
• Spa & Wellness: Indulge in treatments at the full-service spa, which offers body wraps, scrubs, aromatherapy, massages, and a sauna and steam room.
• Connectivity: Free in-room WiFi is available to all guests.
• Additional Services: Supervised childcare, babysitting, laundry facilities, meeting rooms, and tour/ticket assistance are also provided.

El Galleon Beach Resort & Asia Divers offers a friendly, self-contained environment, conveniently located a short walk from the "center of action" in Puerto Galera, yet far enough to ensure a quiet night. It's an ideal choice for families, groups, or solo travelers seeking an unforgettable diving adventure in one of the world's most biodiverse marine regions.