We arrived in Coron Town after the 9 hour banca ride quite refreshed so after a short tricycle ride to Discovery Divers Bar, we waited for another boat to take us the 10 minutes to a small island where Discovery Divers have their diving resort. Not having seen a photo of this place we were blown away to round the point to find a large but derelict flying boat on the beach next to the beautiful resort which is built local nipa hut style. The individual bungalows are separated from their neighbors by a good distance (you need as much distance from Kens snoring as possible) and they are located on hill overlooking the sea surrounded by tropical vegetation. it is nice. An open air restaurant and bar completes the scene apart from the dive shop a short walk away. Larry was travelling light so had to get all his dive gear, Ken had a reg and gauge set with computer belonging to Rabbit while Rabbit had everything brought from Sydney. Rabbit was very good, he even loaned a reg to Larry but this was left in Melbourne as he was travelling light and on the road for another 2 weeks after Ken and Rab.
There are 8 ships from 120 to 170 meters long, and sitting at depths from 24 to 43 meters on the bottom. The outside of these ships are covered with soft and hard corals, apparently better than most coral reefs found locally.
The next morning we left on the resort dive boat for the first of 2 wreck dives, to the Tangat wreck where we tied up to a bouy directly above the wreck. As this was Kens first dive since 92 in Perth with Larry, the dive master agreed it would be a good idea to make it an easy dive, max depth only 28 metres. But that did not stop Ken using ALL his air before halfway so he went onto the diver masters optopus as arranged in case he ran low. This allowed us to finish the dive in a reasonable time. After lunch on the boat, we dived another wreck, Kogyo Maru and Ken breathed less but it was not until the last dive the next day thay he was back to breathing normally and he still had 50 bar left at the dives end. The second day we dived Olympia Maru and the excellent Tai Ei Maru which was a 600 foot long oil tanker, but apart from the visibility which varied from 5 to 20 metres the wreck diving in Coron Bay exceeded our expectations. Discovery Divers were very professional and took great care helping us to adjust to diving after quite a few years of not diving.
After 3 nights at Discovery Divers we decided a night in Coron Town might be good so we checked out and went to a local pension, cheap at peso 600 but with paper thin walls and I was next to Ken....snoring...no sleep... But seriously it was an OK place, not star rated but my kind of place.
Coron is a small fishing and trading town on Busuanga Island in the Calamian Island Group Southwest of Manila. Coron is off of the regularly travelled tourist path and as such is a nice place to visit, there is no hustle unlike places like Boracay.
We were all very tired after the last few days so did not try any of the bars, had a quiet dinner and bed ready for yet another early start, flying back to Manila and car to Clark. (I say Clark as it sounds nicer than Angeles where we ended up)
