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After 4 days in Coron I was ready for some beach time so on Thursday (10/6/05) I flew to Borocay Island , in the Vasayas (Central Eastern Islands), via Manila (the transportation in Philippines is still pretty rudimentary and even relatively short boat rides of 120-160 Km (60-80 miles) can take 24 hours or more and pretty much all flight originate on one end in Manila or Cebu and do not go airport to airport and island to island. Borocay is probably the most well visited site for Western Tourists, but also one of the most beautiful. Since now is still low season the beach is not overly crowded and the guest house rooms are still pretty cheap ($18 a night for a fairly modern room w/ air-con, bath and hot water shower). The sunsets here are spectacular and the pace is certainly that of Island Time the world over, with a perpetually relaxed and chilled atmosphere and a fairly boisterous night life.

After Manila I headed to Coron, on Busuanga Island towards the North end of Palawan (South Western Philippines). There I had 3 fantastic days of diving, mostly on 5 of the sunken wrecks of the former Japanese Imperial Fleet. The first 2 days were spend with 6 dives, on 5 of the main wrecks sunk by American Planes in 1944. The wrecks were all of various sizes from a smaller, 100 foot gun boat, to a massive 400 foot tanker and a 300 foot or so cruiser. All of the wrecks had rusted or bombed out holes in their structure and allowed us to dive into several of the more open compartments where one does not need a dive line and the Advanced Wreck Diving certification. There was an English tour group out of Thailand that was on our boat the second day and nearly all of them were certified dive masters with lots of wreck experience and they were diving with the newer Nitrox air mix that allows for longer dives with shorter surface time in between. They spent their dives intentionally seeking out very small holes in the hulls in which they could squeeze their way in and they explored compartment to compartment through the length of the hull, many areas that were completely dark save for the light from their halogen lamps. This sounded so cool it has inspired me to get both my Nitrox and Wreck Diving certifications (possibly the former before I leave the Philippines).