is there more than one Apo reef in the Philippines?  There might be ...I think
"Apo" is a common name there. The name "Apo" has a meaning in their language
...and I've forgotten what it is.

Back in 1979, I took a dive charter aboard an old tub that took me to Apo
reef.  The starting point of the trip was a flight from Manila to a small town
on the Southern end of Mindoro Island and from there, the charter began
...heading down towards Buswanga where we spent several days at Apo Reef.

On the way there, we found little flotillas of outriggers -- entire little
village fishing people...word had it that they plundered the reefs around there
when no one was looking...did something totally illegal called "pounding the
reef" which was positioning their small outriggers into a circle and making a
racket by pounding their boats with sticks to frighten the fish up in the
middle where they positioned their nets.  Some of these miscreants actually
dynamited the reef in places.

Word came back to me that Apo was pretty much wiped out by these outlaws since
it was not protected as it should have been.  But the diving there (way back
when) was sublime. They had this giant gorgonian there, one pink down one down
at 110 feet ....one that I'll never forget and have never seen the like of
since and I've dived just about everywhere on the planet.  It was an u/w
photographer's dream come true!