Coron 1996

Many of you may be familiar with Coron, the name, if not the place. Coron Bay has become known to the outside world, and to divers in particular, due to the events of 24 September 1944. On that day, US Navy planes from a carrier fleet sank an entire convoy of 24 Japanese ships sheltering among the islands, creating one of Asia's better collections of wrecks. Its main drawback, when compared to the more famous Pacific sites, is indifferent visibility, due to tidal flow in the relatively shallow bay. Provided you can put up with visibility of 10m plus, the wrecks are excellent, the place relatively accessible, laid back, and very cheap.

From Manila, one needs to take an internal flight (from the domestic airport, remember) to Busuanga. This can be booked through Manila travel agents, from Hong Kong, though they always think you're trying to go to Zamboanga, about a thousand miles away, on Mindanao.

In wet weather, the runway looks like a particularly tricky stage of the Camel Trophy rally, though of course its nothing to the pilots of 'Pathetic' Air, or the drivers of the jeepneys that traverse the island.

Coron town itself, confusingly not on Coron island, which forms one side of the bay, would be a one-horse town, if there was a horse. It's an overgrown village, with no real reason for one to be there except to dive. There are a handful of diving operations in the place, though Discovery Divers seems to get the vote of those who don't come on a live-aboard.

Gunter, the owner's, verandah-on-stilts doubles as both briefing room and social club. This being no resort, night-life sometimes stretches beyond a few beers (or worse, Tanduay) to a video, if the power doesn't brown out. This makes absolutely no difference to your enjoyment, as Gunter's wife, Jhing, is an excellent cook, and after four dives a day, you won't be able to stay awake beyond 9 o'clock anyway!

While one can't stay at Discovery Divers, there are several guesthouses within easy reach. I stayed at the 'Kokosnuss', but spent no time there other than asleep. It seems both easier and more congenial to eat even breakfast at the dive-'shop'.

Most of the wrecks are 1.5 to 2 hours banca-ride from the shop. For this reason, one tends to spend the whole day on the boat, and take a packed lunch. Luckily, sun-shades make whiling away one's surface intervals comfortable - no frying necessary! Ten of the fifteen wrecks so far discovered are in readily divable depths, others are constantly being looked for, particularly an elusive 'Hellcat' dive-bomber, the approximate position of which is known.

Star of the show is the 'Akitsushima', a flying-boat tender, about 600ft long. Lying on her port side, on a 38m bottom, she has anti-aircraft guns amidships, and beyond a dramatic split further aft, a huge crane, used for hoisting the flying- boat back on board. The plane has never been found, incidentally, but then may not have been aboard when she went down.

Other big wrecks include the 'Taiei Maru', the fleet oiler, which lies upright, with the deck at 16m, so it's popular as a second dive. The bow, completely torn off, is quite eerie - a reminder of the force involved in putting the boats where they lie today. Rather more noticeable currents here reduce the vis. slightly, but there are plenty of fish so you won't notice it.

The 'Irako' was a refrigerated provisions ship; coolant piping can be seen inside the holds, which are large, and easily swum between at second deck-level. Again a large boat, around 600ft, the shorter dive times a depth of 40m to the bottom allows are luckily maximised by her being upright - its much easier to get one's bearings in and around the wreck.

The 'Olympia Maru', 'Morusan Maru' (known as the Tangat wreck), and two small gunboats not only provide variety, but plenty of oppurtunity for swim-throughs in shallower depths, and more sunshine to see the colours of fish and coral. The 'Lusong gunboat' in particular, is a veritable aquarium. Used as a between-dives splash, or a snorkel, its depth of 3-8m and bristling life means one could happily spend an afternoon almost motionless just observing everything going on all around.

Coron is not just wrecks, however, it also has some pleasant pinnacles, and walls, whose coral- and fish-life provides sites for introductory dives, and also night dives. Being a relatively short boat-trip across the bay, these sites on the North wall of Coron island make it possible to leave, dive, and return in a little over 2 hours, back home in time for tea.

Coron island hides other, unexpected treats. By clambering over the jagged karst limestone, in full kit, a horizontal distance of perhaps 25m, which takes 10-15 minutes, and no little effort, one is surprised to be standing on the edge of a big crater. 'Barracuda Lake', whose once-friendly eponym has gone to the great fish-kettle in the sky, is a big, collapsed cave. Fresh water at 28deg Celsius at the surface, and horizontal visibility of 15m disappear in a very marked transition at 7m. A large halocline and thermocline at this depth means a meter or so of negligible vis. due to mixing, and below, a strange world! Visibility reduces to 8-10m, with a noticeable red-brown tinge, revealing bizarre rock formations - pinnacles and spires. This is nothing in comparison to the realisation that the water is hot - 38deg Celsius! A wetsuit, useful as protection during the climb over, is uncomfortably hot, and flushing water through it brings no relief.

One of the features of the lake is a stream that emerges from the rock wall at about 9m depth. An almost perfectly round hole, a meter in diameter, and fringed with weed offers a pleasant chance to cool down before returning to the entry point. Life in the lake seemed to be limited to striped catfish, cardinalfish, gobies and some kind of snail, all of which appeared close to or above the thermocline. The haze was undoubtedly algal, and I’m sure plenty of other delights live in the depths! I doubt many have done a dive like it, or will again, for that matter - certainly one to remember.

Barracuda Lake is far from the only such lake on Coron island; it is possibly the deepest, and certainly the most accessible, for most of the island is near vertical, and thickly forested. The whole island is maintained as a reserve for indigenous tribals, called ‘Negritos’ by the Spanish, who may remain fairly undisturbed, as the island is ridiculously unsuited to agriculture. Invisible for most of the time in the interior, we moored in what was apparently a favourite fishing spot of theirs, judging by the men hand-lining from small dugout canoes. This spot, beneath cliffs on the far side of the island, also hides the entrance to the ‘Cathedral’. This is a limestone cave, hollowed by groundwater, not yet sufficiently advanced to collapse in on itself.

A small hole on the reef slope at 9m forms the mouth of a tunnel, which dips to 14m before rising into the chamber. Swimming through first, laying a line through the tunnel, we picked out rock lobsters and hinge-back shrimps on the walls, brilliant in the lamp-light. A sand slope rose into a freshwater lake, the undisturbed water startlingly clear, and cold above a 4m thermocline. Little sunlight warms the water, but on surfacing, a small hole in the roof let through a shaft of light, and noise from the forest 15m above. Stalactites and brightly-hued patches decorate the walls, with complementary stalagmites in places underwater showing the flooding is geologically recent. A resident flock of bats fluttering around the roof, their screeches echoing, added to the rather unreal feeling, which really was surprisingly similar to a cathedral, and exaggerated by emerging into the bustle of the brightly sunlit reef.

I would certainly recommend anyone interested in wrecks go to Coron, but also those who have never dived on wrecks before. Not only are there excellent wrecks to dive, but also enough variety, indeed memorable dives, should hunks on tangled steel not take your fancy.