Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park

Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the middle of the Sulu Sea, reachable only by liveaboard dive boat on a roughly ten-hour crossing from Puerto Princesa. The uninhabited North and South Atolls hold sheer coral walls dropping over a hundred meters, home to more than 600 fish species and roughly half of all known coral species worldwide. Divers come for hammerhead sharks at Jessie Beazley Reef, manta rays, whale sharks, hawksbill and green turtles, and the seabird colonies of Bird Islet. A small ranger station on the North Atoll is the park's only structure. Strict weather and permit limits keep the park open for about three months a year, from mid-March to mid-June, closed the rest of the year to typhoon swells and reef recovery.