Puerto Galera Takes Centre Stage: The International Underwater Shootout 2026
From spectacular coral reefs and dramatic underwater landscapes to some of the smallest and most extraordinary marine creatures imaginable, Puerto Galera has attracted divers and underwater photographers for decades.
This September, that remarkable underwater world will once again take centre stage with the Puerto Galera International Underwater Shootout 2026, taking place from 16–20 September.
For everyone at Lalaguna Villas, this year’s event has particular significance.
We’re proud to be the official host resort, welcoming the organising committee, judges, photographers and members of the international diving community to Small Lalaguna.
But although Lalaguna Villas will be at the centre of much of the activity on land, the real star of the event lies just beyond our beachfront.
It’s Puerto Galera itself.
Why Puerto Galera?
Puerto Galera sits alongside the Verde Island Passage, an area internationally recognised for its extraordinary marine biodiversity.
For underwater photographers, that means an almost ridiculous variety of potential subjects.
Wide-angle photographers can find colourful reefs, schooling fish, wrecks, dramatic underwater scenery and high-energy dives.
Macro enthusiasts can spend entire dives searching for nudibranchs, frogfish, seahorses, pipefish, crustaceans and countless other tiny subjects.
And one of Puerto Galera’s great advantages is that you don’t necessarily have to travel very far to find them.
From Lalaguna Villas, many of Puerto Galera’s best-known dive sites are only five to eight minutes away by speedboat.
That creates a very different kind of underwater photography trip.
You can make an early dive, return to Lalaguna Villas for breakfast overlooking the water, head out again, come back for lunch and still have several opportunities to dive during the afternoon and evening.
It makes diving part of the resort experience rather than something requiring an entire day away from it.
Verde Island: The Wide-Angle Challenge
Then there’s Verde Island.
Sitting in the heart of the Verde Island Passage, Verde offers some of the most spectacular diving in the Philippines.
On the right day, the sheer amount of marine life can be difficult to describe until you’ve experienced it.
Schools of fish move across reefs covered with colour, while currents bring nutrient-rich water through the passage and help support an extraordinary ecosystem.
From Lalaguna Villas, our speedboats can reach Verde Island in approximately 20 minutes, making one of the Philippines’ most celebrated dive experiences remarkably accessible.
For photographers, it provides a complete contrast to Puerto Galera’s famous macro diving.
And that diversity is exactly what makes Puerto Galera such an appropriate home for an international underwater photography competition.
Preparing Behind the Scenes
Hosting an international event isn’t simply about what happens during competition week.
Preparation has already been taking place at Lalaguna Villas.
Our two function rooms have been used for specialist underwater spotter training, bringing together local dive guides from resorts and dive operations throughout Puerto Galera.
Classroom sessions have been combined with practical underwater training, helping guides further develop the specialist skills required when working with underwater photographers.
It’s something we’re particularly pleased to support.
A great underwater photograph isn’t always just about the photographer.
Local guides possess extraordinary knowledge of these reefs.
They know where particular species are likely to appear, understand local conditions and often notice animals most of us would swim straight past.
Developing those skills further strengthens Puerto Galera as an underwater photography destination.
More Than a Dive Resort
The Shootout also highlights something important about Lalaguna Villas.
Although diving is central to our identity, we’re much more than somewhere to sleep between dives.
Lalaguna Villas is a full-service beachfront resort overlooking the Verde Island Passage.
Guests can combine diving with luxury accommodation, dining, a large swimming pool, a fully equipped 24-hour gym and the simple pleasure of sitting beside the water watching boats cross the passage they have just been diving beneath.
That becomes particularly important when photographers travel with partners, friends or family members who aren’t diving.
One person can spend the day chasing the perfect underwater photograph.
The other doesn’t have to spend the day sitting outside a dive shop waiting for them.
We think that’s how a dive holiday should work.
LLV Divers
Of course, underwater photography requires getting underwater.
That’s where LLV Divers, our on-site PADI 5-Star Instructor Development Resort, becomes an important part of the Lalaguna Villas experience.
We deliberately operate small recreational dive groups, with a maximum four divers to one guide.
Our regular dive schedule includes departures at 8:00 am, 10:30 am, 1:30 pm and 3:30 pm, together with a 6:00 pm night dive.
Sunrise dives and dusk dives, including Mandarin fish experiences, can also be arranged.
For photographers, smaller groups mean more time, more space and less competition around subjects.
Puerto Galera Through a Different Lens
Perhaps that’s what we’re most looking forward to.
We see the Verde Island Passage every morning from Lalaguna Villas.
Our dive team enters these waters every day.
We know how extraordinary they are.
But during the Shootout, photographers will arrive from different places with different ideas, techniques and ways of seeing the underwater world.
They’ll photograph familiar sites from completely new perspectives.
Somebody may spend an entire dive photographing an animal the size of a fingernail.
Somebody else may capture the energy of Verde Island in a single frame.
And somewhere during the competition, somebody may photograph Puerto Galera in a way none of us has ever seen before.
That’s the magic of underwater photography.
Welcoming the Diving Community to Lalaguna Villas
The Puerto Galera International Underwater Shootout takes place from 16–20 September 2026 (check out our availability here), and we’re incredibly proud that Lalaguna Villas will serve as its official host resort.
For us, this isn’t simply another event.
It’s an opportunity to bring the international underwater photography community together in Puerto Galera and to showcase the extraordinary destination we’re fortunate enough to call home.
And when the workshops are finished, the cameras are prepared and the boats leave our beachfront, attention will turn to where it belongs.
Underwater.
Welcome to Puerto Galera. Welcome to Lalaguna Villas. And we’ll see you beneath the surface.