Dead Palm

What the sources describe

Dead Palm is an Anilao dive name that appears in Solitude World’s guide under “Arthur’s Rock (or Arthur’s to Dead Palm)”. The wording connects it with an Arthur’s Rock route, but does not establish that the two names identify exactly the same area.

Solitude describes coral formations and opportunities for macro and wide-angle photography along this route. Its depth range and wildlife account cover the grouped description; they should not be read as surveyed limits or guaranteed encounters at a separate Dead Palm site.

Planning your dive

When arranging a dive, ask the operator which section they call Dead Palm and how the planned entry, exit and depth profile relate to Arthur’s Rock. This partial guide does not establish an exact boundary, current access arrangements or conditions for your dive.

Operator listings

Several operator lists name Dead Palm as a site of its own. Bambu Villa's depth table gives it an average of 10 m and a maximum of 18 m. Aqua-Venture's table, in a Wayback snapshot of January 2026, lists Dead Palm at 25 m with moderate current, a coral reef as its attraction and both wide and macro lenses. Pacific Blue's Japanese-language list, in a snapshot of May 2026 of a page last modified in 2020, gives 5 to 35 m and 20 minutes travel, describes abundant soft and hard coral and says that when there is current the dive becomes a drift past the corals. The Anilao Critters and Resorts 2018 map numbers Dead palm fifth, between Arthur's Reef and Twin Rocks, and Manila Scuba Diving Adventure's list, in a snapshot of 28 September 2026, places Dead Palm directly after Arthur's Rock and before Twin Rocks while also listing a separate Red Palm. Lakwatsero's travel guide writes Arthur's Rock or Dead Point and separately Red Palm. The depth figures range from 18 m to 35 m and the spellings differ; none of this is reconciled here.

A dated firsthand report

A ScubaBoard trip report posted on 30 June 2008 describes an afternoon dive at Dead Palm on 3 June 2008, about a 20-minute boat ride from the poster's resort, southeast of Koala just past Arthur's Rock. The poster called it a beautiful site with hard and soft corals, sponges and the usual assortment of crinoids, with many small reef fish and anemones, and said the group was in the water at 4:50 PM. Right at the beginning he photographed a blue-spotted ribbontail ray, and he noted anemones and anemonefish with porcelain crabs and nudibranchs; his attached photos are labelled with anthias, blue-green chromis, a three-spotted humbug, eastern skunk anemonefish, a Moorish idol and the nudibranch Phyllidia varicosa. These are one diver's observations on that date.

Database records

The Underwater Photography dive-site database carries an undated member entry for Dead Palm, Anilao, Balayan Bay, giving a typical depth of 0 to 20 m and typical visibility of 3 to 10 m. REEF's report for its survey site Dead Palm, retrieved October 2026, counts two surveys, one by an expert and one by a novice surveyor, with 202 species reported over 2 hours 18 minutes of bottom time; the fish seen on both surveys include bigeye snapper, blackbelt hogfish, blackeye thicklip, blacklip butterflyfish, blackstripe cardinalfish, blacktail snapper, blue-green chromis and bluestreak cleaner wrasse. Two surveys and one database row do not establish a position or present conditions, and the guide remains without a map marker.