Anilao Trip Report, April 2013
Equator Diving recently held their first annual ‘Perfect for Photographers’ group trip – and for this inaugural trip the destination was Anilao in the Philippines! Our previous trip to Anilao had shown the amazing potential this destination had and for our group trip we stayed at Crystal Blue Resort. This resort caters perfectly to groups and with its large camera room and in-house Photo Pro it’s a photographers dream. During our 10 night group trip we dived all of Anilao’s best sites photographing everything from the smallest skeleton shrimps to huge balls of Jacks.

The Diving!
On the critter sites we were finding many different types of Frogfish, Blue Ring Octopus, Harlequin Shrimp, Boxer Crabs, Hairy Squat Lobsters, Mantis Shrimps, Emperor Shrimp, Rhino Shrimp, Coleman Shrimps, Skeleton Shrimp, Pygmy Seahorse, Thorny Seahorse, Flamboyant Cuttlefish, Pygmy Cuttlefish, Bobtail Squid, Upside down Jellyfish, Ornate Ghost Pipefish, Anemone Pipe Eel, Blue Ribbon Eel, Bumble Bee Shrimps and a huge variety of Nudibranchs! Mixed in with the critter dives were wrecks dives and Anilao’s famous Twin Rocks dive where a tornado of Jacks hang out. There were also plenty of night dives taking place and amongst other spectacles there were mating Frogfish and feeding Stargazers and Bobbit worms! And of course this is just a snap shot of what we saw on the trip – critter rich areas such as Anilao provide you with a never ending critter list!

Evening Talks & The Photo Competition!
In the evenings there were talks on underwater photography techniques, the life of a police diver and working as a diver in the movie making industry! Toward the end of the trip we held a photo competition with guests entering up to 4 photos each spanning four categories: Wide Angle, Macro, Animal Behaviour and Image with an Underwater Model. Only whole image manipulation was allowed. In each category there was an open winner (SLR, 4/3rds, compact) and a compact winner. From the category winners an overall winner was then chosen. All the winners received a short photo workshop with photo-pro and competition judge – Mike Bartick. The overall winner also took home the grand prize – an Epoque EL-1000L video light, courtesy of the competition sponsor – Cameras Underwater.