Are you planning a trip to Moalboal? I would highly recommend staying at Panagsama Beach. This area has a wide range of restaurants and activities for you to choose from. In this post, I will tell you all about what to expect if you’re interested in the sardine run. At Panagsama Beach, this is one of the very popular activities to do.
Booking
I looked around at a few places and the standard price to rent a GoPro with a guide and equipment included is 500PHP. I made the booking at around 2pm and I was out on the water for 3pm. This can depend on weather, tide, availability, etc. Most dive shops, hostels, hotels and restaurants on Panagsama Beach will be able to arrange this for you.
The Experience
I was given a set of flippers and a snorkel to try on. I mentioned this in a previous post but make sure to wear sunscreen. This is another place where it is very easy to get sunburned! I was then introduced to my local guide who was extremely kind. He took me down into the water and we swam out a bit.
First, he first took me over to see some turtles. When you rent a GoPro, part of the experience is that the guide will take pictures and videos of you while you swim. If you want a better idea of how the videos look, you can take view my Philippines playlist on Tiktok which is available here.
Although it was great to get to see the turtles, there were several moments where it felt very invasive on them. For example, when I stuck my head under water, there were a few times I couldn’t see a place for turtles to move. I could see plenty of legs though.
Furthermore, there were a few times when people couldn’t get underwater to get their perfect shot. Instead, some guides were pushing them down as their held their breath! Both parties seemed happy to do so. We swam over to a quieter area which I preferred but we also didn’t spend too much time with the turtles.
I’m going to be very honest here. I had seen the turtles and sardines already as I had done my PADI open water course a few days beforehand. You can read more about that here if you like.
My reasons for this excursion were more self-indulgent. I had memories from being present in the moment, but I had nothing to look back on.
We swam out from shore for a few minutes and there were several boats in the area. My guide brought me over to see the family of sardines. It felt like there were hundreds of thousands of them. They’re really a sight to see. In order to get some incredible shots, the guides get really deep down underwater so they can record you diving below. They also will ask you to move into the shoal in order to get the incredible effect of them all dispersing so quickly.
My guide was very enthusiastic and energetic. It was clear that he and the other guides knew exactly when the right time to move and record were. I think we spent about 45 minutes with the sardines alone and he was happy to stay in longer.
There was never any pressure to get out, even after so many videos and photos were taken. I would recommend making sure to equalise as much as possible under water if your ears feel blocked. I had been far deeper below in the days beforehand but snorkelling here affected me for a few days afterwards.
Once we were back on shore, the images and videos were put from the GoPro onto my phone. You will need to download GoPro Quik in order to do this. You don’t need a GoPro account as you are able to use it as a guest.
Final Thoughts
Finally, I enjoyed the experience not only to have evidence of my time in the water with the sardines and turtles, but also to have evidence! If you have your own snorkel and GoPro, I definitely think that you can do it yourself. That said, I don’t have a GoPro, nor do I have the skill to go so far deep into the water to get the images and videos which the guide did. For me, it was totally worth it. Thanks for reading!
