Sardine Run in Cebu

The sardine run in Moalboal, Cebu is definitely a must-do if you are in the Philippines! Witnessing these millions of sardines moving around is unbelievable and breathtaking. This was probably the best underwater experience we’ve had so far. Even if you don’t know how to dive, you will still enjoy this incredible spectacle!

Getting There

The sardines are located just off the shore of Moalboal, Cebu so there is no opening or closing time. However, we recommend going earlier in the day to avoid the crowd and so that there is ample lightning.

You actually don’t need to book a boat or a tour to visit the sardines but it was helpful to us when we booked this tour. The tour company picked us up from our resort in Mactan, Cebu and drove us to the port in Moalboal. The drive was about 4 hours long and they picked us up a little before 5AM.

We like to book private tours so we could stay longer at any location that we wanted to. My friend and I also needed to rent fins which the tour company was able to find for us for 200 pesos each.

Sardine Run

When we finally arrived at the port and walked to our boat, we were pretty eager to get started and to see the sardines! In the tour that we booked, the first stop was a snorkeling location at Pescador Island. We only snorkeled for a few minutes because we saw that there were jellyfishes in the ocean! We already got stung by a lot of plankton so we didn’t want to risk getting stung by jellyfishes too.

After this stop, it was a 10-15 minute boat ride to the sardines location. Immediately, we saw that it was packed with other boats and people. There were even some people who were walking to the sardines location from the shore! But since there were so many sardines, it wasn’t difficult for us to find an isolated spot and to enjoy, dive, and take photos.

As soon as each of us went into the water from the boat, we instantly became hypnotized. We were blown away by what we saw under the water – millions of sardines! Don’t worry though, they are harmless.

We spent the most time here because the sardines were amazing and very entertaining. They move in perfect formation and extremely fast as well. If you make any sudden movements towards them, they will move out of the way but then reform their perfect formation. Brea and our friend would dive down to get these amazing shots:

There were a lot of tourists here ranging from all levels of swimming expertise. We saw other tour groups and families on life vests snorkeling at the surface, to scuba divers all the way at the bottom. We even saw a group of free-divers and one had the same fins as Brea!

The sardine run is an experience that can be enjoyed by anyone and we will definitely do this again (maybe after I learn how to free-dive haha)