Caticugan Marine Sanctuary — Attraction in Siquijor

My partner from France went snorkelling and he loved it. I was too tired. We paid the entrance fee and with a guide, flippers rental. It was inexpensive. 350 pesos total.

It was a low tide.

It's not the easiest snorkel if you're not an experienced swimmer because you need to stay flat to not touch the corals during the low tide. But my partner loved it and he felt safe. His guide took care of him and spoke great English. The guide (Kuya Pat). They saw barracuda, giant clams, lots of coral. The guide signaled for them to go back because the currents were getting stronger.

In this area. There are seasons in the year where it's possible to go without a guide because the tide is higher. It's safe to go even alone. When it's not like this. A lot of non locals are skeptical to hire a guide because they want the freedom to explore. Without knowing the waters or how dangerous it can be to accidentally get swept by the current or step on the corals which are both bad for the corals and the people because there's a lot of tropical fish and shellfish that can have irritants or poison if people aren't local or don't know the area.

We were in Cambugahay Falls and though it felt our payment to the guide wasn't as worth it. (Still necessary we but we had to pay for just putting stuff on a table like a donation).

Here. It's actually worth it because Kuya Pat knows the corals and the areas where it's less dangerous to go during a low tide. Worth it and it supports the economy of Siquijor to patronize...

We drove there on our motorbike and the road is pretty rough. Be careful driving.

When you get there it’s difficult to find the official “entrance” because there is none. You drive until the road ends and you’ll see a tree with a table, on the rocks you’ll find “stairs” that go into the ocean.

Someone runs to meet us and starts talking about pricing. He says the entrance fee is 50PHP. We also wanted vests and he rented them for 100PHP each. Vests were new and in great condition.

As I said, the weather was not great so it was not easy to snorkel and see a lot of marine life. But we saw beautiful starfish, giant clams, and some pretty cute fish. It was very nice for people that don’t do a lot of snorkel.

Im giving it 3 stars because the place is filthy. The road has trash, the rocks have trash, the place itself is completely abandoned and not taken care off.

If you’re forcing people to pay and you just stand there doing nothing, why not pick some trash bags and start cleaning the place?

These guys found a piece of land, decided to start taking visitors money (and we know the land’s not theirs to do this), we pay for it and give them an income, why not do something good for the are since you’re there already...

Please do not go here!!! You have to pay 250 because they say you have to have a guide (50 entrance fee & 200 guide fee) so we did, guide was swimming so fast and not checking on us, HE WAS TOUCHING THE CORAL AND TRYING TO CATCH CLOWN FISH IN HIS HANDS I was so angry and told him that you shouldn’t touch the coral because it kills them and him and another guy working there laughed and I said no seriously you can’t be doing that, he said yeah yeah okay next time I said I don’t really know what we just paid 200 pesos for you didn’t tell us anything or guide us at all just sa around grabbing coral and terrorising fish. Then as we were about to leave he was like ‘did you pay for everything?’ I said yes thank you bye please never touch a coral again. We did see lots of nice clams and starfish and other marine life but please don’t go and give money to these people that have no idea at all about anything to do with...