Anilao Pier

A shallow black-sand muck flat beside the working Anilao port, world-renowned as one of the planet's great night dives. By day it is an unremarkable rubble-and-sand bottom under heavy banca traffic; after dark it transforms as nocturnal hunters emerge. Divers routinely spend 90-plus minutes drifting at waist-to-chest depth, lights probing the silt for bobbit worms erupting from their burrows, stargazers buried to the eyes, hunting octopus and cuttlefish, snake eels and flatfish. Negligible current and a flat profile make for a relaxed, photography-driven dive — dived almost exclusively at night for good reason.