Coron-Palawan

[Dadvocate]

I’d like to ask a question of anyone who is in the Philippines and who has dived in the Coron area in Palawan. My girlfriend and I are going to be doing three days of diving there in a week or so, and I wanted to see if anyone here has some suggestions or concerns about the area from first hand experience. As it stands right now, we are looking to dive a few easier wreck sights, as we are new to wreck dives and also still getting used to being buddies for each other.

Are plan is to stay in the 22-26 average depth range and want to choose wrecks that will be accommodating to the depth. I know from what I have read that there are dives that go much deeper than that. I also know that some people think the visibility is not that great at certain sites.

I have earmarked Black Island Wreck, the so called “Unknown” wreck, and the Olympia Maru as dives well within our range and experience. If there are others that people know, please advise, or if you have info on these sites and want to share, I’d give an open ear..

I also read about a place called Gunter’s Cathedral, which is supposed to be a cavern at 7 meters that descends into a chamber at about 20 meters. It sounds wonderful. My concern is the reference to soot at the bottom that I have read which can block ones view of the exit. Has anyone experienced this who can tell me how significant this risk actually is and how easy it is to avoid kicking up soot?

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

 

[iris_ice]

Hi Dadvocate! welcome to PPD! :balloon

to start you off, here's chip's coron trip report:
http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=126664&highlight=Coron

and here's halthron's:
http://www.scubaboard.com/showpost.php?p=1510008&postcount=178

we dived the following wrecks:

tangat wreck - got overly excited and had to pass from this one.
kogyu maru - don't remember anymore. just read their trip report
olympia maru - don't remember anymore as well so just read their trip report
east tangat wreck - the easiest of them all. was able to go round and round it as well as swim through.

non-wrecks we tried out were:

gunther's cathedral
barracuda lake
and a reef i forgot the name of

as we were with a large group, the way to gunther's cathedral got silted up pretty bad but we had light and a line we followed and that helped a lot. it was a very short, silted up distance so no worries there, really.

don't miss barracuda lake. you and your gf would love that, too. it was like a trip to mars underwater, a whole different experience :boings:

hope that helps