Maricaban Island

Maricaban Island anchors the western edge of the Verde Island Passage and offers some of the area's finest macro diving alongside impressive wall topography. The island is surrounded by steep walls draped in black coral, sea fans, and a profusion of soft coral growth, while rubble and sand patches at the wall base shelter a remarkable array of small critters: flamboyant cuttlefish, robust ghost pipefish, Coleman shrimps, and multiple nudibranch species new to science have been found here. Seahorses are resident on the reef slope. Whale sharks pass through the passage seasonally, most reliably between November and February. The relative remoteness of Maricaban keeps dive traffic lower than Anilao's more accessible sites.