Day 149: Reef & Wreck Tour

Exciting day today - we booked ourselves a Reef & Wreck tour from one of the many operators in town, this time a different one to the previous tour as the equipment they'd given us was pretty ordinary (crap).

The wreck diving around Coron is said to be some of the best in the world, and quite varied - a flotilla of 12 small Japanese gunboats were trapped in the shallows around the islands near the end of WW2, and were sunk by American bombers. For one reason or another, they never actually got moved and are mostly still sitting there now, 70 years later, covered in coral and sea life. It's also quite rare to be able to snorkel wrecks, normally they're in deep water and require proper scuba diving (which with my epilepsy I'll never be able to do).

And since we'd enjoyed the Chinese gunboat snorkelling so much, we decided to do the wreck tour. We had four stops for the day: Tangat wreck, Pass Island beach, the Coral Garden, and the Lusong wreck. Quite a bit more travelling as well today - periods of 40 or even 60 minutes on the boat between stops. After boarding we were surprised to find the trio of Spanish women and their Filipino friend from the previous tour on board, so we greeted them and had a good chat on the way out.

First up was the Tangat wreck, sitting in about 5 metres of water. Great visibility here, with bright sunshine as well illuminating the whole wreck. There's not much left of the actual shit, just the front half of the hull, but it's sitting mostly upright and you can clearly see the framework on the inside as well. There was a doorway into the bowels of the ship, but my freediving skills are pretty poor and I wasn't going to risk going inside!

Not quite enough time here, though it always feels like that when you're having fun. Next up was Pass Island, our lunch stop. We'd left the dock around 9:30 and had a 40-minute ride to the first stop, then 30 minutes in the water and then an hour's ride to Pass Island, so it was still a little early. But the island was beautiful; very small and with a bright white sandy beach. We also had a great surprise - a little dachshund named Audrey!!

Most islands we've been to have stray dog populations, but Audrey apparently lived on this island and was a pet of someone who worked at the small hotel. She was very friendly, though a bit overweight since it was where most of the boat excursions have lunch so I think she got a lot of tidbits. Got some good footage of her running around and enjoying herself.

Food again was very good, cooked by the boat captain and his offsider - fresh grilled fish, grilled pork, rice, salads and fresh fruit. Sadly I didn't eat as much as usual as my stomach had been feeling a bit off all morning.

After a long relax on the beach and some time watching locals play basketball (it's the national sport here and people go crazy for it), it was back on the boat for a 40 minute trip to the Coral Garden. It had clouded over a bit, but that didn't dampen the effect - visibility was still great and the coral was amazing. Definitely amongst the best coral we've seen on the entire trip, though not quite as much marine life as we're used to. I did see a small-ish barracuda though!

Final stop for the day, and thankfully only 5 minutes away, was the wreck of the Lusong gunboat. This is the shallowest of all the wrecks, and indeed was so shallow that part of the hull actually protruded from the water (not sure if it was low tide or not). This was probably in the best condition as well, though again it was overcast by now so the visibility wasn't quite what we'd had in the morning. Still got some great shots and had a lot of fun exploring. The boat lay on its side, with some of the hull metalwork and the superstructure etc clearly still visible. As expected, there was a lot of coral and marine life growing on the hull too. But after again an all-too-brief time in the water, it was time to head off.

A long hour on the boat, and we were finally back in Coron town. Same tired walk back to the hotel, where again we both collapsed into a hot shower to rinse the salt water off. Didn't feel like going quite as far as the Hippy House from last night, so we went to No Name Bar on the main road a couple of minutes walk away. Beer very cheap but food was average, and I'm still not used to people smoking inside pubs and bars. Home stinking of cigarettes again, gross.Read more