Coron Bay Wrecks

DIRdudes Andrew and Richard have just returned from a week of wreck diving in the Philippines. We teamed up with the guys at Living Seas in Singapore and headed off on a 22 hr travelthon via Manila to the island of Busuanga.

Our hosts for the trip were Discovery Divers and their purpose built dive facility at their Puerto del Sol resort certainly met our expectations of a good dive operation. In preparation for our arrival they had arranged for seven sets of manifold double cylinders to be ready, they had arranged for our exclusive use of a dive boat large enough to take all our gear and laid on dedicated dive guides for the duration of our stay.

History

September 1944. The US Third Fleet, under the command of Admiral "Bull" William Halsey aboard the USS New Jersey, began moving toward the Philippines Islands. 

Task Force 38 was involved in carrying out air strikes against Japanese targets in the Philippines. 

In the early morning, 0550, 24. Sept. 1944, the TF 38 took off towards a  target area some 350 miles away from their carriers. A total of 120 aircraft consisting of  F6F HELLCAT fighters and SB2C HELLDIVER bombers were on there way  to CORON BAY. 

At the time it was the longest range air raid in history. At 0900 the Planes reached Busuanga Island, found 15-18 large enemy ships anchored in CORON BAY. 45 minutes later it was all over, the planes returned home leaving behind a hell of burning oil, explosions and sinking vessels. 

By way of an introduction to our dive videos for this trip we made this trailer covering the background. Enjoy.

The Wrecks
We dived six wrecks in total, some multiple times and we also visited Barracuda Lake with its haloclines and geothemally heated depths. Follow the links below to read more about each wreck.

1. Okikawa Maru
2. Olympia Maru
3. Ekkai Maru
4. Koygo Maru
5. Barracuda Lake
6. IJNS Akitsushima
7. IJNS Irako

Our Videos

You can watch all of our videos for this trip in this vimeo album.