Liloan is perched on the southern tip of Cebu Island, about 135km from Cebu City. Liloan's diving site may be limited in number, but it is well placed for diving in Visayas, as visitors can easily reach dive sites on Bohol, Siquijor and Apo Island. "It's small peaceful place with a village atmosphere," says Ariel Ronato of the Marine Village Dive House, " It's nice to just wander around and chat to the friendly and helpful locals."
Liloan is well known as a macro diving paradise, but also offers the chance of seeing some big fish. In March and April you have good chance of swimming with whale sharks, mantra rays and dolphins. Beginners need to worry about oversized pelagics they can take it easy in shallows at the Marine Village house reef or at Antenna Point, Where there are soft and hard corals and plenty of rather more normal-sized tropical fish including scorpion fish and banded snake eels. Further away, Maria Elena and santa Maria are two slope dives with bucket sponges, corals and sighting of pufferfish as well as nudibranches.
Perhaps the best sites for open water and advanced divers can be found around tiny sumilon Island, halfan hour east of Liloan. An impressive wall goes down to 40m, with plenty of caves. Local marine life includes angelfish, blueside wrasse, mackerel and turtles. "A favourite diving site of mine is Catadman Point," says Ronato, "There's a small cave, a good cliff and if you're lucky a whale shark will swim by."
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