Cliff diving in Buruanga
BY RANDY V. URLANDA

From the halfway dive spot at sand-filled Ariel’s Point off the rustic coastal town of Buruanga in Aklan near the Antique border, a novice diver was poised to plunge into the 35-meter deep blue water from a 15-meter high stone ledge.
At a speed of 60 kph, the dive was preceded by a loud splash and a big bull’s eye of white bubbles that marked the spot where he went into. A few second later, he emerged from the water with a wide grin, raised his right hand, and whooped it up to the boisterous cheers of his friends above. He became one of the growing numbers of cliff divers in Buruanga.
But unlike the world-renowned cliff divers of La Quebrada in Acapulco, Mexico, who have been drawing tourists since 1934 by diving from a 45-meter tall cliff into a narrow gorge, Ariel’s divers are not athletes skilled in high-diving. They are ordinary tourists, many of whom have not even swam or plunged into deep waters in their life.
Officially called Batason Point in the map, the one-hectare rocky Ariel’s Point (named after Ariel Abriam who got a lease-to-own deal from its former owner), which is a 30-minute cruise on a 22-seater speedboat, is now a major water sport destination for Boracay holiday makers and pelagic sports enthusiasts who consider it as one of the “best dive spots” in the world-renowned island destination.
“I discovered this place facing the Cuyo Sea more than a year ago when me and my son, Alvin, who just graduated from Annapolis and was here for vacation, was scouting for a place to build a resort with the ambience of Boracay 30 years ago,” says Ariel Abriam, a retired US naval commander of the Sixth Fleet who was in charge of more than 200 ports in 44 countries in Europe and Africa.
“A father (who is now 85) and son toiled for 14 years in hauling gravel and sand from the fishing village of Alegria, 500 meters across the cove in the mainland, to fill all the crevices and horizontal pockets of this craggy promontory, including carving out steps along the cliff, to make this a diving resort,” narrates Ariel who got an appointment at the Annapolis Naval Academy in 1974, and joined the Navy after graduation from the Ivy League military school.
The primeval beauty of Ariel’s Point is naturally preserved because it is only accessible by sea from Buruanga, two kilometers away on the mainland of Panay, and half an hour away on a passenger speedboat from Boracay.

To go up to the cliff side water sport destination, visitors have to go down a small pier below and enter a winding stairwell inside a gaping limestone crevice.
“Unlike Acapulco’s La Quebrada where its renowned cliff divers wait for big waves to come in before they plunge into its five-meter deep water through a narrow gorge, novice divers here dive into a 35-meter deep blue water along a sea wall like that in Yapak (a dive spot in the northern tip of Boracay) that’s not affected by tidal pattern,” explains Ariel, who also owns the tony 30-room Boracay Beach Club (BBC) Hotel in Boracay’s upscale Balabag district.
Ariel’s Point has three furnished native cottages where weary divers can take a rest, and tiered dining areas on the rocky promontory naturally shaded by pandanus trees and lush coastal vegetation, which is the habitat of macaques, birds, and other wildlife.
“For just US$25, a guest is ferried here before noon either on a 15-meter motorized outrigger or a 22-seater speedboat, eat a sumptuous buffet of seafood and native meat dishes, drink all the beers and sodas he could drink, swim and dive till he gets tired, relax in a cabana, then be ferried back to Boracay at sunset,” says Ariel.
Ariel’s Point has become an ideal place to hold special events like that of Sports Unlimited and Miss Earth, whose candidates all enjoyed their dives, celebrities like TV host Donita Rose, the Kwok family who owns the Shangri-La resort hotel chain, Mark Nelson, and foreign tourists who’ve been wanting to do an Acapulco-type dive all their life, only to realize their dream at Ariel’s Point.
So, if you want to overcome your fear of heights and drowning, you can do both by diving without hesitating atop the four-story stone ledge. Coming out of the water triumphantly after the splash will make you do it over and over again.