Gato Island

A small rock islet about 16 km northeast of Malapascua in the Visayan Sea, designated a sea snake and fish sanctuary in 1997. Its signature feature is a roughly 30 m tunnel that cuts through the southern flank of the island between about 6 and 15 m, where divers swim past whitetip reef sharks resting on the sand floor and exit onto a coral wall on the far side. Outside the cave, the walls drop to 25–30 m with abundant macro life: painted and giant frogfish, mandarinfish at dusk in the shallow rubble, pygmy seahorses on red gorgonians, blue ringed octopus, and yellow lipped sea kraits (Laticauda colubrina) hunting over the reef and ascending to the surface to breathe.