The night life around Baloy Beach near Subic is not that much better either. And if the girlie bar sence is not your taste then you are stuck!!
The Baloy Beach area is more 'girlie' based, but the hotels and accomodation within Subic Bay itself are more conservative. Pier One has live music every night and is not seedy. There are house rentals/B&B in the Binictican area (former US military housing), along with a wide range of hotels in SBMA that range in price for any budget.
Wreck diving is NOT eveyone cup of tea. Giving the gereral vis. at New York and the hell ship(off limited if US Naval ship is docking near by), you might be disappointed.
You've got to love wrecks to enjoy Subic. If you love wrecks, then it is definitely a world-class destination. The variety of wrecks will satisfy any historical urges you have. Most of the wrecks are less than 15mins from the beach (USS NY is just 5 mins from the main SBMA seafront dive centres).
Subic Bay is incredibly sheltered, so it is diveable in anything other than a full-blown typhoon. The trade-off is that the sheltered bay can cause bad viz in some sites, as silt accumulates from the river that feeds into the bay. As you visit sites further out towards the bay entrance, the viz increases dramatically. A first dive on USS NY can see >5m viz, 10 minutes in the boat to the San Quentin for dive 2 and you could be in 30m viz.
The San Quentin is often overlooked by divers visiting Subic. It was one of my favorites there. The viz is usually pretty good there...and the depth doesn't exceed 16m. The wreck dates to the Spanish-American war, with an interesting history. It is quite broken... but the large boilers stand proud of the sand...and your DM will show you the bow and stern sections, which are widely spaced, but still recognisable. The wreck lies immediately next to a nice reef... I've seen a wide range of interesting critters here. It's good for nudibranch, octopus, cuttlefish, turtles, ghost and robust ghost pipefish and other wierd macro wonders. There are several giant clams there, which are popular with divers.
If you visit nudipixel.net you can see my nudibranch survey pics from Subic. I have other subic wreck and marine life pics at
andyunderwater's photos and albums on webshots
El Capitan and LST are good and you night spot the bull shark if you are extremely lucky!!
Extremely lucky! They
are there, but sightings are pretty infrequent. I spent one great dive on the LST, where a Bull Shark was patrolling up and down the wreck and coming within an arms length of the watching divers.
El Capitan is a very easy wreck dive, that offers relatively safe penetration options. It is one of the best 'training' wreck that I have dived on. Just be careful of the occasional diesel slick within the air pockets in the hold. It is situated very near to the 'Ocean Adventures' theme park...and you can often hear the clicks and shrills of Dolphins when diving there. If you've not dived with Dolphins yet... then you can arrange that directly with Ocean Adventures. They allow scuba in the early AM, before they start running the dolphin shows for tourists.
LST is a
sweet wreck dive. It stands upright on a sandy bottom and is covered with a wealth of marine life. Lots of big schools of snapper and juvenile barracuda. Lots of lionfish and scorpion fish. It's a deep recreational dive, but there is virtually no current and decent viz. Kneeling on the sand at the ship's bow...looking up at the enormous assault doors is a nice memory to take away with you. There's a ton of blue spotted stingrays on the sand around the wreck.
It is the internal confined space inside the New York that drawn me there again and again.
The penetration of USS NY varies from easy to lethal. Most of the DMs in Subic will be happy to take you inside the upper hull space (the wreck is on its side), which is a tangle-free area with lots of exits. If you wanted to visit the engine rooms (awesome) you would absolutely need technical/advanced wreck training, with an adequate redundant air source, redundant lighting and solid line skills. The vessel still has its enormous gun turrets along with a huge propeller...both are excellent places to have your photo taken! In the mid-section, explosions have torn the ship open...and this attracts large schools of fish.
If the USS NY had great viz, it could quite easily be considered as one of the best wreck dives in the world. Sadly, it doesn't. Then again, the low viz does offer a very enigmatic and almost eerie feel to the dive.... it is always memorable!
