My wife and I booked a dive package for an 8 night stay at Chindonan Dive resort, In October and November 2019. This was our first experience scuba diving in the Philippines. Between the team at the resort, our awesome dive instructors and the dives sites we had a great time.
The resort: We had complimentary transfers to and from the airport, including a speed boat to Chindonan Island. We were met and welcomed by dive instructors, Kenneth, Matt and Sean. As guests you are very well looked after and due to the size of the resort being small (18 guests max) the arrival felt personalised and genuine.
The food: I requested vegetarian food, and almost every dinner was different and objectively delicious. The quality of food was consistently good and the team behind the cooking were great. Breakfast and dinner was included with our package. Lunch and drinks were the only extra cost.
The villa's: Are all a short walk from the restaurant the centre for socialising, eating, drinking and hoping on and off boats. The villas are large, clean and comfortable and have A/C.
Due to the remote location, an eco friendly approach to Chindonan's operation is adopted, helping to keep the island clean and untouched. The island has its own spring water which is clean to drink, and supplies all water for showering and drinking.
Our experience: We were diving at the end of the wet season so we felt like we had the island to ourselves. We both did over 15 dives each whilst we were there, the majority upon all of the wrecks available. We visited Baracuda Lake, diving to about 36m in unique thermo and hydro climb conditions, a truly weird and wonderful experience. The wreck dives were sequentially harder so we ended with a mind blowing 40m enriched air penetrative wreck dive at the end.
The diving in general was of very good quality, dive times were as planned and ranged between 36 min to 60mins (site and dive plan dependent) and we dived the house reef for about 1.2hrs solo. Visibility varied depending on what you were doing and the wet season effected visibility on occasions due to blooming plankton, the big however is that with the deep wreck diving it gets pretty dark so you need torches and when penetrating wrecks visibility isn’t an issue as there is generally not much current moving through them, at least when we were there. I would say that Chindonan is a must if you are keen on wrecking diving.
All the equipment and boats were well maintained, giving a sense of assurance. We booked a package and ended up purchasing a handful of extras, a few more fun dives and extra certification.
Due to the proximity most of the dives were accessed by single trips on a small boat and we would head back to the resort on all surface intervals to either relax or get some food.
Sean and Matt the instructors were on all of our dives and due to wet season it was one on one for over 60% of our dives. Both very interesting and experienced people bringing invaluable insights and learning for both of us, we had such fun diving with them, every day we honed our skills and left the resort with further knowledge, better techniques and importantly some great memories.
Lastly, we have been certified divers for about 5 years and both my wife and I felt that this trip was a turning point for us in terms of solidifying current techniques and learning new ones, realising we are now divers for life. Subsequently we have purchased dive computers and have just joined a club so we can dive all year round.
As scuba divers exploring the globe its always hard to know where to go next, wading through so many different shops or resorts wondering whether you'll get a good deal or a good experience. We are all of course different and expect different things, but in the 5 years of diving this has been one of the best overall experiences and would recommend Chindonan to start or continue wreck diving and to also see some pristine reefs as well. We will certainly return.
Good job team Chindonan!
