Location and Climate
Where we are
Zamboanguita, Negros Oriental
The HQ of Marine Conservation Philippines is in Zamboanguita, a municipality of some 30,000 inhabitants in the province of Negros Oriental.
On the outskirts of the municipality you'll find our base inside Siit Arboretum, a beautiful botanical garden with both endemic and international flora, some three hundred metres from the water as the bird flies. If you cannot place Negros Oriental on a map, the film may help.
Zamboanguita sits below Mount Talinis, amid rice paddies, egrets and buffaloes. Although there are a few dive resorts, it is still relatively unexplored by tourists and offers an authentic Filipino experience to those who venture further south than Dauin, the better-known neighbouring municipality renowned for its incredible diving. Popular dive destinations like Apo Island, Siquijor, Bohol and Cebu are all within easy reach by bus and boat.
Things to Do and See Nearby
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Dumaguete
Known as the City of Gentle People. Shop in the malls, catch a movie, enjoy a night out, or take a ferry from the port to the nearby islands.
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Apo Island
A short boat ride from MCP, Apo Island has one of the oldest marine sanctuaries in the world, and its reefs are breathtaking.
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Siquijor Island
Siquijor is famous for its mystique and witchcraft, and for some of the whitest sand beaches you can imagine.
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Day Trips and Activities
Ideas for your Sunday off: mountain lakes, waterfalls, hot springs, beaches, hiking, shopping and local markets.
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Weather
Climate
Zamboanguita lies exactly on the border of two climate types, and so has a little of both.
The climate is governed by two main seasons, or winds, called the Amihan and the Habagat. The Amihan (from the north) lasts from October to the end of March, while the Habagat (from the south) rules the other half of the year.
Although not as pronounced as in other tropical countries, the main rainy season starts in mid-June, with the most intense part lasting only a few weeks. The hottest month is just before that, in May.
It doesn't rain constantly in the rainy season, so while it influences things a little, we continue our diving and normal conservation work. December has a small rainy season, but it brings little more than a few scattered showers and pleasantly cooler temperatures. The driest time is April, when the hillsides and the botanical garden we live in clearly dry up.
Air temperatures vary between 25°C and 35°C year round. Sea temperature goes from 26°C in February, when it's coldest, to around 30°C in June, July and August. Most volunteers find scuba diving in a short wetsuit fine all year.
Heading here soon? Check the live forecast for Zamboanguita.
What about typhoons?
Because the Philippines is made up entirely of islands, the wind plays an important part in our climate. In foreign media the country is well known for its typhoons (hurricanes in American English). This is perhaps partly undeserved, as typhoons are fairly localised and many areas, such as the lower Visayas, are hardly ever affected.
Negros Oriental, where we are based, is well outside the typical typhoon belt and is rarely hit. Typhoon season, if we get one at all, is December to January, and usually all it brings is a wet, stormy day not much worse than those that frequently occur in Europe and the UK, and the occasional flight cancelled due to problems elsewhere.
Zamboanguita
The name is a derivative of Zamboanga - meaning "small Zamboanga" - tracing back to the city on Mindanao to the south. This occasionally causes anxiety in visitors, since the names are easily confused and Zamboanga features on most international travel advisories. The two places are no more related than New York and York in England. Zamboanguita is calm, tranquil and perfectly safe.
A more colourful account holds that the name comes from an episode involving an octopus - locally called coguita. Before the Spanish arrived on Negros, Moro fishermen working the rich local grounds found a coguita caught in their net. Their leader told a man to go ashore and "isab-ong ang coguita" - hang the octopus on a tree. Every octopus caught after that was hung there to dry, and locals began calling the place "Sab-ongan ug coguita."
When the Spanish arrived they called it "Zamboangaguita," which shortened over time to Zamboanguita.