Coron

After supposed engine failure on one boat, and the next day's being stuck in Coron due to a typhoon warning, we finally made it out of El Nido on an overnight ferry/cargo ship. This was a relativity small wooden cargo ship, with the upper deck given over to passengers, and the lower deck carrying mainly live fish. Basically you grabbed a marine bed from the pile in the centre, and made yourself comfortable – by the time we set sail at midnight, you could barely get some dental floss between the beds. I had to close the wooden shutters at 3am, because the rain was driving in, and you had to be careful when going to toilet not to fall into the cargo hold. That said, I had a pretty good night's sleep; better than a lot of the trains, and certainly better than the overnight bus to Banaue.















We arrived at Sea Divers (our lodgings and dive operator), minutes too late to wreck dive that day, so we relaxed and had some breakfast. The bangka (outrigger) we were meant to get, the Jessabelle, was parked at the end of Sea Divers pier in Coron, and going nowhere. Frankly, after looking at it (it's a big canoe with outriggers), I wouldn't want to spend 7 minutes on it in open sea, let alone 7 hours to cross from El Nido to Coron. A similar boat sunk on Friday killing 11 people (www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/8005382) .















After heavy losses in Manila Bay, the Japanese pulled the remaining imperial fleet back to Coron Bay, where it was duly sunk on 24th September 1944 by US task force 38. Their loss was the dive community's gain, with half a dozen wrecks easily accessible in less than 40m of water.

Keen to get right into the wrecks, but not die, we enrolled on specialist wreck diving and Nitrox (enriched air) courses. Dive one was the Kogyo Maru, a cargo ship lying on its starboard side at 36m. We played around in the large cargo bays, but didn't do a full penetration. The second dive was the Morazan Maru (AKA Olympia Maru), which also lies on its starboard. Here we swam into the cavernous boiler room, before moving through the ship to the bow, squeezing through sideways doors and up vertical corridors – it's easy to see how you could get fatally lost inside.

We had 3 more dives on the second day: the Irako, the Akitsushima and the Okikawa Maru (AKA Taiei Maru), all of which involved swimming head first through tight holes into dark rooms, and marking our way along inside. The Taiei has its bow broken and pointing up at 45 degrees, so there's a cathedral like quality as you enter this section with the shafted of light coming through.


We finished by swimming up the propeller shaft, from the rudder to the engine room and out. After we'd all surfaced, we were a diver down – his buddy swore he'd seen him on the mooring line. After 10 minutes of staring at the horizon, with his mate looking slightly worried, he was spotted some 200m from the boat, having lost the mooring lie and been taken by the current. His mate opened a beer, relived at not having to explain that one to his family.















Sorry, no wreck photos as I didn't bring the marine housing and they don't rent any cameras. It's a shame we only had 2 days rather than the 4 we'd planned, but I'm now addicted to wreck diving, so we may have to go somewhere else to cane more money.