Wreck Diving and Downtown Exploring

The islands on the way to our dive site made the ride more interesting.

Erich, Sara, and I met at the Sea Dive restaurant at 8:15 AM to leave for our first dives in Coron. The two dives we planned on doing were to the Irako and Kogyo Maru WWII shipwrecks. It was my first time diving a historic wreck and first time I’ve ever penetrated a wreck. Most places won’t penetrate wrecks unless everyone has prior wreck diving training; there’s certain techniques and safety concerns related to wreck diving.

Sara and Polish instructor Franek talk on the top deck.

We went for an hour boat ride on Sea Dive’s two story banca with kitchen and a nice dining table at the top. It was by far the most luxurious banca as bancas go. Just before our first dive to Irako Muri, our Divemaster Al briefed us on how we were going to penetrate the wreck. My buddy for the dive was Erich and we dived with a Polish instructor Franek who buddied with Al. Sara dived with another group because she didn’t want to penetrate that deep into the wreck.

Low visibility made our dives more challenging to stay together.

For the dive, Al was planning on penetrating and swimming through several narrow corridors and rooms ultimately ending up in the boiler room. Our descent to the wreck was fairly easy. The visibility at the wreck reminded me of diving in Los Angeles—5 to 7 meters. In the wreck, we moved at a fairly brisk pace. I found it hard to at times to maneuver in the tight spaces especially with my camera setup. I managed to use the flash light on my camera strobe along with my weak little torch.

Buoyancy control was challenged getting through small holes.

About halfway into the wreck, I noticed I couldn’t see Erich’s light anymore. I stopped and looked back several times for him but the visibility in the wreck wasn’t that good. I stopped a couple times to take some pictures to try to help him catch up but Al was moving too fast to really stop too long. By the time we reached the boiler room, I signaled to Al that I didn’t know where Erich was. This was a very scary situation to lose someone in a wreck. Al looked back a little but didn’t see Erich. We decided to exit the wreck and hope to find him outside of the wreck. He wasn’t around and now there was a very strong current pushing against us.

Moving along the wreck against the current caused me to overexert myself to a point where I was hyperventilating. I had to crawl along the wreck, hand over hand, in order to get to the ascent line. When I eventually made it to the ascent line, I was already really exhausted. The current was frightening to fight against because I didn’t want to be swept away. Holding onto the ascent line was painful because of all the sharp barnacles and stinging sea life; ah, that’s why people wear gloves on this dive. We did a long safety stop at 5 meters but Divemaster Al surfaced to make sure Erich surfaced. If Erich hadn’t surfaced, Al would have to get another scuba tank and look for Erich at the wreck below. Thankfully, Erich was on the surface.

It was frightening to not find Erich in the wreck during the dive. Erich said couldn’t see anything at one point, lost us, then found an opening in the wreck to exit and ascend. Al said when he looked back during the dive he saw two lights so he thought Erich was with me; what he saw was me using two lights instead. I probably should have signaled to Al earlier that I couldn’t see Erich’s light anymore but it was hard to get to Al. I also think we should have been briefed a little better in terms of signals, safety, and light use before the dive. Diving wrecks have very specific techniques for safety reasons which is why there is separate training for it. All that matters though was that Erich was safe.


While on the surface eating lunch, I was debating if I wanted to go on the second dive because of how stressful the first dive was. Franek and some others mentioned it was a great dive with no current which persuaded me enough to do it. For the second dive, Sara was comfortable enough to come along with the group I was in. Sara buddied with me while Erich buddied with Franek.

Small school of fish in the wreck.

The dive went well; no current, no problems and it was interesting. It was nice to penetrate the wreck and swim up and around corridors and rooms. Visibility was poor which made it hard to see a lot of things in the rooms and corridors though. The whole experience felt like I was on a guided tour in some old haunted mansion; there was an eerie, haunting feeling about the place as we went through different rooms—current swayed coral like cobwebs in the wind while silt dusted everything around. Definitely being able to swim through a historic WWII wreck had a lot more meaning towards the experience than swimming through a ship sunk just for the divers to explore.

Sara tanning her body and tongue.

Erich chasing Sara (seen on the other side, in the far left window) around the boat.

After the dive, the boat set out for a reef dive nearby. Erich, Sara, and I decided not to dive it and just hang out on the boat. It was good to just rest and get some sun. I forgot why, but for some reason, Erich chased Sara around the boat until eventually he threw Sara into the water. Funny times. We left the dive site and when the boat ported, we got off and went to our rooms to clean up. We saw that our Dutch friends from El Nido—Timo and Nina— just arrived in Coron. We later met up and decided to walk around downtown Coron with them.

Avon and an odd posing chicken.

It’s funny to think it was Erich, Sara, and my first time leaving the Sea Dive Resort after a day and a half. In downtown, we went through the market where there were a lot of food stalls selling fruit, vegetables, and little snacks. We all got some bananas, mango shakes, and Skyflake crackers at the market. We briskly passed the meat market selling fish because it was too smelly to hang around. People in Coron are very friendly as a lot of them greeted us while we walked through different neighborhoods. Children were not shy and often wanted their picture taken.

Beautiful sunset as we were walking back from downtown Coron.

Walking back to our rooms was a beautiful sight as the sunset was shading the clouds a nice orange color. We all decided to eat a nice dinner at La Serenata that was directly on the water. Great food, good service, beautiful view.


- jason