Busuanga Island

El Nido – Coron Town, Busuanga Island

The ferry trip between El Nido and Busuanga Island (Coron town) was
immensely scenic but a lengthy seven-hour affair on an open boat. Luckily, we
were given lunch (a small fish and a substantial amount of rice). The area
around Coron town was famous for its World War II wreck-diving.

In September 1944, a fleet of Japanese ships hiding in the harbour was sunk in
a daring raid by the U.S. Navy. The result was around ten well-preserved
shipwrecks surrounded by a coral reef. There wasn’t much to do but dive and
watch the sunset over Coron Bay. I strode to Seadive Resort, a massive
ramshackle complex sporting rooms, restaurants, bars, and dive shops. The
diving looked well organised and I booked a three-tank boat dive for the
following day.

Coron Town

The first dive had an unusual location - a lake/hot spring. The dive, firstly,
involved a boat ride, then a short swim to the shore, followed by a scramble (in
full diving gear) over a rocky outcrop to the lake. Upon descending about
fifteen metres, the water temperature shot up to a boiling 38°C. The
temperature variation was so significant one could see the thermoclines. We
followed the wall for almost twenty minutes, and then returned to the entry
point, making a forty-minute dive in total. How cool is that?

Our next dive was the Olympia Maru - a WW2 Japanese shipwreck. She was
lying on her starboard side at twenty-five metres. Like all the other Japanese
ships in the bay, it was sunk on 24 September 1944 by a U.S. air attack and
was a one-hundred-and-twelve-metre supply ship.