Anda is a 2-hour drive from Bohol’s capital city Tagbilaran. We stayed in a beautiful private resort called Amun Ini Beach Resort and Spa. The last 500m road to the resort is quite bumpy but it was all worth it as the place was very relaxing.

The resort was also pet-friendly, which is another great thing since we brought our Shih tzu Max. He enjoyed the place as much as we did. The resort has several Aspin/Askal dogs but they are harmless.

We took a tour of the dive shop and saw that they have interesting critters on their house reef. What enticed us the most was the chance to see a blue-ringed octopus, which is an ultra rare critter. We decided to do a night dive in the Mandarin garden, which was a 3-minute boat ride from the resort, to see the mating Mandarin fish and try our luck on the blue-ringed octopus.

We got so lucky to see one blue-ringed octopus! It’s our first time to see one in our 5-year diving experience and we’ve even heard of others who have been diving for over 15 years and haven’t seen one. We spent a good 20 minutes appreciating that beautiful creature. That alone justified our entire trip to Bohol. Our dive guide, Lito, was very good on spotting the critters and it was obvious that he is very familiar with their dive sites.

The next morning, we had 2 dives, both were only 5 minutes away from the resort. The first one was Birhen West which was a sandy slope. We enjoyed the small marine creatures, also known in diving as Macro. These include multiple thorny seahorses and sea moths or pegasus. We also found several nudibranchs and a cowfish. On our way up the surface, there was an electric clam, which is better appreciated on video.

On our second dive, we went to Snappers cave. This dive site is known for the 8 pygmy seahorses in 1 gorgonian sea fan at around 20 meters! That was the most pygmy seahorses we’ve ever seen. I just chose 1 subject and took lots of picture of it. According to Lito, he saw a whale shark in this dive site 2 weeks prior to our arrival.

After our 2 dives in Amun Ini, we had lunch in the resort and went back to Loay. Our overall dive experience in Amun Ini, Anda was spectacular. The dive rates are more expensive than usual but the service is very good and well worth it. We suggest you look for Lito, he is an amazing dive guide who has been diving for over 15 years, previously in Dauin Dumaguete. We’ve been to Dauin, which is another great place for macro photography, but Anda has great potential since it’s less crowded. We are sure theres more to see here in Anda and 3 dives is not enough to fully appreciate its underwater beauty. We can’t wait to find more of the hidden gems here.

See our teaser video below: