Coron, Palawan

Where it sits. Coron is a municipality on the eastern side of Busuanga, the largest of the Calamian Islands, in northern Palawan Province, roughly halfway between Mindoro and mainland Palawan. Confusingly, the town of Coron is not on Coron Island: the town sits on Busuanga, while Coron Island is a separate jagged limestone mass about half an hour away by boat across Coron Bay. The island is a wall of black-grey karst rising to around 640 metres, its interior riddled with caves and holding several sunken freshwater and brackish lakes. The bay between them is shallow, sheltered and dotted with smaller islands, which is why a Japanese fleet chose to shelter here in 1944.

The wrecks. On 24 September 1944, aircraft launched from United States Navy carriers of Task Force 38 flew what was then among the longest-range carrier strikes of the Pacific war — roughly 340 nautical miles each way — and caught a group of Japanese auxiliary vessels anchored in Coron Bay. More than a dozen ships were sunk in a single morning. They lie in warm, sheltered, generally clear water at depths that put most of them within reach of recreational divers, which is what makes Coron one of the best wreck-diving sites in the world:

• The Irako, a refrigerated provision ship of about 150 metres, sits upright at 30 to 43 metres and is the most technically demanding and most admired of the group.
• The Okikawa Maru, a tanker over 160 metres long, lies in shallow water with its hull top at around 10 metres, so parts of it can even be snorkelled.
• The Akitsushima, a seaplane tender, lies on its port side at 20 to 38 metres with its huge crane collapsed alongside the hull.
• The Kogyo Maru carries a cement mixer and construction materials in its holds; the Olympia Maru and Morazan Maru are gentler penetration dives at 12 to 25 metres.
• The Lusong gunboat breaks the surface at low tide and is a snorkelling site.

Visibility is best from November to May. Silt inside the holds is fine and easily stirred, so penetration wants a torch, a reel and restraint.

Coron Island and the Tagbanwa. Coron Island is the ancestral domain of the Tagbanwa people, who in 1998 were granted a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title covering the island and its surrounding waters — an early and significant recognition of indigenous marine tenure in the Philippines. Most of the island's lakes are sacred and closed to outsiders. Two are open. Kayangan Lake, reached by a steep flight of steps over a saddle and then down to a boardwalk, is a brackish basin ringed by limestone with water clear enough to see the bottom at ten metres, and the view back over Kayangan Bay from the steps is the image that sells Coron. Barracuda Lake is stranger and more interesting: it holds a sharp thermocline where the water temperature jumps from around 28°C to close to 38°C at a depth of roughly 14 metres, with the halocline shimmering visibly as you pass through it, and it has become a favourite training and technical dive precisely because it is so unlike anywhere else. Twin Lagoon is entered either over a wooden ladder across the dividing wall or, at low tide, by swimming under it.

On land. Mount Tapyas rises behind the town, with more than 700 concrete steps to a lit cross and a 360-degree view over the bay that is worth doing an hour before sunset. Maquinit Hot Springs, a short tricycle ride east, is a rare saltwater hot spring, walled into pools at around 38 to 40°C beside a mangrove shore. Calauit Island, at the far northwestern end of Busuanga, holds a wildlife sanctuary stocked with giraffes, zebras and elands moved from Kenya in 1976, alongside native Calamian deer and mouse-deer — a strange late-Marcos-era project whose legacy includes an unresolved dispute with families displaced from the island.

Getting there and timing. Francisco B. Reyes Airport at Busuanga takes flights from Manila, Cebu and Clark, and is 45 minutes to an hour from town by van. Fast ferries connect Coron with El Nido in around three and a half to four hours and with Manila overnight. Typhoons track through this part of the archipelago from July to October, and boats and flights are cancelled accordingly. November to May gives the clearest water. Environmental fees are collected per site, and lake entry supports the Tagbanwa community. Boat boarding, steep steps at Kayangan and the Mount Tapyas climb make most of the area impractical for wheelchair users, though the hot springs and the town waterfront are manageable.