Journey to Basuanga Island, and the Coron Bay Wrecks

Warning: in a few paragraphs, this will turn into another dive nerd post.

Our journey from the Gili Islands, Indonesia, to Palawan province in the Philippines was, to put it politely, hellish.

Our transport company put the wrong airport code on our ticket, so we nearly ended up stranded at the Lombok airport (not useful when your tickets are for Bali Denpasar!). We lost a SECOND bank card to a hungry ATM (and have been forced to rely on credit advances ever since). We spent the night on a blanket on the Kuala Lumpur airport floor (to be woken up by the guy who collects the carts... we were in his space. He did not look impressed. As we shuffled off, I suppose neither did we). We had a moment of horrible clarity in which we put the facts together and figured out that our flight was landing at the Clarke Airfield, which is sixty kilometres north of Manila... and our connecting flight was out of Manila's city airport because we'd each booked one flight (and so we stayed in a massively overpriced hotel in dirty, dirty Manila).

So, lessons: 1) Pay very close attention to your tickets. We normally would have caught this one, but the writing was so scribbled I had no idea what it said to begin with. 2) Hold on to your bank cards!! You can get them back, but you have to wait until the bank is open, and at 8 pm at the Bali airport waiting for an outbound flight, that isn't an option. 3) Don't mess with the cart guy's cart system. 4) CHECK THE AIRPORT CODES.

Oops.

But finally, finally, we landed on Basuanga Island in the west of the Philippines, just north of the long, ocean-bound finger that is Palawan. Coron Town is the biggest population centre. It's a dirty, compact little town on a bay that was once lined of mangrove trees.

We ended up at the Krystal Lodge, a little guesthouse that, like the surrounding neighbourhood, is to be found down a narrow, rickety pier, perched on stilts some six feet above the bay, which serves as both garbage disposal and sewage repository (The locals poop right into the water. I don't know exactly what was happening with our sewage, but I hope it wasn't going into the ocean. I am not sure I want to know the truth).

Beyond the sludgy waters (teeming with little fishies), our pier-hotel had a glorious view of Coron Bay and its mountainous islands, especially at sunset. One evening, in an unusual moment of motivation, Dan convinced me to climb the 720 steps up to the top of the local hill, to see the sunset.

I was glad once we'd reached the summit and watched the blazing sun sink into the distant limestone cliffs. But we definitely haven't been keeping in shape lately and it hurt my thighs!

The whole reason we'd started our Palawan adventure in Coron was to try out some wreck diving. In September of 1944, the US launched an air attack on a Japanese fleet that was sheltering in the bay, sinking a number of them. Today the site is known to be some of the best wreck diving in the world - the sites are both historically interesting and beautiful, covered in coral growth and home to millions of fish. And it is just the coolest thing to be descending into the murky depths when suddenly, you're confronted by the spectral silhouette of a smokestack and the enormous curve of a ship's bow, covered with waving sea fans and bobbing lion fish.

We did six dives in the bay about an hour's boat ride from Coron Town, three a day for two days, with a newer company called Amphibiko. The dive master, Christian, was professional and helpful. The crew were fantastic, equipment was new and worked perfectly. On the first day, we dove the wrecks of two auxiliary cargo ships, the Olympia Maru and a wreck now known as 'Tangat,' and one small gunboat, known as 'East Tangat.' On the second day, we dove on Irako, a refrigerator ship, and another auxiliary cargo ship, the Kogyo Maru, and finished up with a dive in nearby Barracuda Lake, a volcanic lake that grows hotter in distinct levels as you venture deeper. The hottest temperature registered by Christian's dive computer was 37 degrees Celsius!

After discussing the options, we decided to take Christian up on his offer to enter the wrecks. Before anyone leaves a lecturing comment - besides of course my mother, who is entitled - I know we aren't supposed to go in without specific training, but we decided that as we're both comfortable with our buoyancy (that is, staying level and swimming straight) and we wouldn't really be going beyond the open cargo holds, that the small risk was worth the chance to see these incredible wrecks. We're not likely to be back in Palawan anytime soon. We peeked into Irako, but didn't go beyond the first hold - it's known as a highly advanced, dangerous wreck, deeper than we'd been before and full of intact corridors to explore. Probably extremely cool, but certainly beyond our skill level to go inside.

The decks of the ships were truly as interesting as the interiors. Nearly seventy years of coral growth has transformed these man-made monsters into thriving ecosystems. We saw some enormous fish, and big shoals of smaller ones, circling the smokestacks and slipping in and out of the holds.

And for $25 a dive each, they give you lunch halfway through the day, and then beers on the return journey to Coron... it must be some of the cheapest diving in the world. Well worth a visit!

S.

Desert Island Diving

On the north side of Lombok Island, Indonesia, is a trio of little desert islands in the South China Sea. The rain clouds from Lombok rarely make it across the strait. Here, the skinny cows tear at the dry grass under the watchful cones of Mount Rinjani on Lombok, and Mount Agung on Bali. This is a diver's paradise. Colourful corals, shimmering fish, and fantastic underwater visibility have made these little beach islands the hottest spot on the Indonesian tourist circuit: these are the Gilis.

Once my surf-induced sunburn was soothed enough to permit travel, Dan and I took a private van (public transport is available, but difficult) from Kuta Lombok to the ferry port at Bangsal, on the north coast. Bangsal is the worst. Endless touts and misinformation reign free, coupled with an unreliable ferry schedule, can frustrate even the most zen traveler. We managed to buy a ticket from the wrong outlet for a boat that wouldn't be sailing that day. Eventually, we joined forces with an Italian family and paid to have a boat take us to Gili Air, a kilometre or less away, because at some point, it is worth $4 each to give in and speed up the process.


Also I dislike Bangsal because it is the source of the unfortunate large volume of garbage that spoils the otherwise beautiful sea around the Gilis. Bangsal, you suck.

We'd planned to either move from Gili Air to Gili Trawangan (the party island of the three), or, more ambitiously, all the way to Ubud, on Bali - but the planned two dives turned into a more satisfying five, and three nights became six. The islands aren't off the beaten path - they're full of tourists, but the pace of life is relaxed, and the children aren't the smooth-talking, guilt-tripping bracelet sellers that they are in Kuta. So we stayed.

The day we arrived, we stopped for lunch at the Karang hotel, and struck up conversation with the managers/dive masters of the attached Karang Divers, Dante and Alex By the next morning, we'd decided to dive with this shop. They seemed enthusiastic, friendly and experienced, and (the benefit of going with a new shop) the equipment looked top notch.






We talked over potential sites, and ended up going to:
- Shark Point, where we got to put our new deep diving skills to use. No sharks, sadly, but lots of turtles.
- Halik Reef, very popular with snorkelers. Its a semi-wall with beautiful coral and lots and lots of fish. 
- Sunset, which features rare hundred-year-old coral growth (so pretty!) and where I SAW MY FIRST SHARK! (outside of an aquarium, clearly.) We had a good long look at a white-tipped reef shark as he circled around and away from us. Quite small (4-5 feet) and not dangerous, but still a shark. Lots of turtles on this dive as well.
- Hans Reef, which has lots of colourful coral at the shallow end, and a sandy deep section.
- And finally, our first night dive in the harbour area. Really neat to try diving by flashlight. At times, it was disorienting, but by no means scary.

After five dives, including our first night dive, I am happy confirm all of our first impressions - thanks, guys, for a great week!

I was sad to leave Indonesia - it charmed me, with its cheerful, generous people, its tasty food (mie goreng, how I miss you!) and its stunning landscapes. I know I'll be back - there's so much left to explore!

S.

Under the Sea: Tioman Island Diving

From KL, we grabbed a bus to the coast and then a ferry (the next day, as Malaysian transport rarely lines up properly) to Pulau Tioman, an island in the South China Sea well known as a diving hub. This is where I'd be doing my PADI Open Water Diver certification.

After a full day of scuba theory, cheesy PADI videos, and anticipation, it was finally time to go underwater. I pulled on the wet suit  ignoring the pungent smell of old sweat and salt water. On went the weight-belt, the inflatable vest (called a BCD), the tank, and the breathing regulator, with its four hoses that snaked along my body to poke into various bits of the vest, like the arms of Shiva going in for a feel.

Despite the wet suit, scuba equipment does not as such make one feel svelte.

My classmates, two Danish girls, our instructor, Rosie, and I began shuffling down into the waves, fins in hand. We plopped into the sea, yanked on our fins and face masks, and swam away from shore. And, with the BCD inflated, the cumbersome equipment and I floated easily. Sneaky.

The first time we descended was only into two metres of water to land on the sandy bottom. Despite the many hours of theory and the regulator in my mouth, I forgot to breathe for a good fifteen seconds.

We did a few dives like this, in the sandy shallows, to practice our buoyancy and learn emergency procedures, and then finally it was time to go on a real dive.

We rolled backwards off the boat and descended into the stunningly turquoise waters of the South China Sea, through schools of bright fish. We stopped just above the reef and swam forward over coral of every shape and colour and size, swarming with fish and covered with plants.

What a strange feeling, to breathe effortlessly in this brilliantly-coloured new world, to look up to see the pale plane of the surface stretched over the water above us, undulating gently in waves that, at ten metres deep, we could no longer feel.

By the end of our nearly two weeks on Tioman, I'd taken seven dives at different locations around island: four for my certification  one to certify me for deep diving and two for fun. We'd seen Hawksbill turtles, stingrays, cuttlefish (a small, colour-changing squid), baracuda, pufferfish, two huge napoleon wrasse and a number of triggerfish, who eyed us suspiciously - not to mention the clouds of colourful fish and the stunning coral we encountered on each dive. Big thanks to Rosie and the ladies at the Tioman Dive Centre for taking excellent care of us!

We didn't do a lot else on Tioman. In the second week, we took a rainy trek across the steep hills to Juara, a quiet town on a stunning beach, where we spent a night before trekking back - no rain on the way back, and we saw some long-tailed macaques playing (fighting?) in the trees on the Juara side.

Despite the encroaching monsoon season, our weather held out pretty well - although its hard to be upset with the weather in a place where even the rainy days are warm and beautiful.

S.