Alona House Reef

Overview

Alona House Reef runs directly off Alona Beach, Barangay Tawala, Panglao Island. The profile slopes from a coral-covered wall down to sandy sea beds studded with larger coral formations. Its shallow depth makes it one of Panglao’s more accessible dive and snorkel sites — no boat transfer needed, just a short shore entry or swim from the beach.

The reef supports a wide range of marine life: sea cucumbers, eels, feathered starfish, and nudibranch, the last of which makes the site a reference point for macro photographers. Reef fish common to the Visayan Sea move through the coral formations through the day, and the sandy stretches between coral heads give nudibranch hunters room to search.

Its shallow, calm conditions also make it a working site — dive shops along the Alona strip use it regularly for introductory dives, checkout dives, and night dives, letting new divers and photographers work at reduced depth without difficulty. Coral in the area has sustained some damage from boat mooring ropes over the years, a known issue local operators are aware of.

That working-site role makes the reef commercially central to Alona’s dive economy rather than a scenic extra. Because it sits directly off the beach, it is where most of the strip’s dive shops run the pool-to-ocean transition dives required for PADI Open Water and Discover Scuba certification, before newly certified divers move on to boat sites like Balicasag Island or the deeper wall sections further along the coast. The volume of beginner traffic is also the direct cause of the mooring-rope damage: repeated anchoring and fin contact from a high turnover of first-time divers wears on coral in a way that a lower-traffic wall dive would not see. Some shops on the strip have shifted toward buoy-based mooring rather than dropping anchor directly onto coral heads, a standard response on heavily used house reefs elsewhere in the Philippines, though the practice is not yet universal along Alona.

Location

Directly offshore of Alona Beach, Barangay Tawala, Panglao municipality, Panglao Island. The reef starts at snorkelling depth from the beach waterline and extends out to the sloped wall at recreational dive depths.

Getting There

Access runs straight off Alona Beach — a shore-entry site. Every dive shop along the strip offers guided dives, equipment rental, and certification courses here. The reef itself needs no boat, though some operators run a short transfer out to the deeper sections of the wall.

Practical Info

Diving at Alona House Reef runs through licensed dive shops on the beach strip; a valid certification card is required, though most shops also offer introductory dives without one. Snorkelling is open to independent visitors — mask and fin rental is available beach-side. Water temperature holds around 26–29°C year-round, with visibility typically 10–20 m depending on season and conditions.

What to Expect

A sloped reef wall from shallow depth, cut by sandy inter-reef channels, with both hard and soft coral present. Marine life reads as a healthy fringing reef: fish in the coral structures, eels in the crevices, sea cucumbers and starfish on the sand, and nudibranch throughout for anyone willing to look closely. No strong currents are documented, and the depth range suits beginners and open-water divers alike.

Notes

Source: Bohol Tourism Profile Eco Dev2025.pdf (BPTO Table 11 — Inventory of Tourist Attractions). Body content drawn from source profile description. Coordinates are approximate for the Alona Beach shore entry point, Barangay Tawala, Panglao.