Verde Island Drop-Off (San Agapito)

Off the south east corner of Verde Island, the San Agapito seamount rises in three peaks — the shallowest breaking the surface, the wall plunging past 70 metres into the Verde Island Passage, the strait a 2005 Carpenter–Springer study identified as the world's centre of marine shorefish biodiversity. Currents run hard here and can turn downward without warning, sweeping the rock in clouds of lyretail anthias while bigeye trevally, emperors and tuna patrol the blue. Gorgonian fans, 1.5-metre barrel sponges and volcanic gas bubbles seeping through the coral give the wall its texture; hawksbill turtles, frogfish and nudibranchs work the ledges. An advanced drift dive reached by banca from Puerto Galera.