We recently spent three glorious weeks diving some of the best areas of the Philippines, exploring three main destinations – Sogod Bay, Puerto Galera and Subic Bay.
Our final couple of days in the Philippines found us at Subic Bay. Now Subic Bay is not your picture postcard Philippines dive holiday destination. It doesn’t have white sandy beaches, crystal blue water and colourful coral reefs, instead it has grey sand beaches, greenish water, seedy bars and some rather basic, but cheap, accommodation. However, Subic Bay also has some of the most interesting shipwrecks in Asia.
Located only 100km west of Manila, Subic Bay has always been an important military area since the Spanish established a naval base here in 1885. The Americans took over the base and enlarged it to be their most important naval base outside the USA, after they defeated the Spanish in the Spanish-American War of 1898. During World War II the base was taken by the invading Japanese and later recaptured by the Americans. Today Subic Bay is full of ship and plane wrecks, some from the legacy of war, others were sunk as target practise and some were just dumped.
While the Americans controlled Subic Bay all diving was banned, but after they departed in November 1992, divers were free to explore the wrecks in the bay. On the day the Americans left Johan De Sadeleir was in the water and exploring these wrecks. He now operates Johan’s Dive Centre on the waterfront at Beloy Beach.
Johan’s Dive Centre operate daily boat dives to the thirty odd wrecks in the bay and offer dive courses, nitrox fills and Tek diving. The complex also includes a bar, restaurant and basic accommodation.
Our first dive in Subic Bay was on the LST, a Landing Ship Tank that sits in 34m. This tank transport ship was scuttled after the war and is a fantastic dive. We enjoyed 12m visibility, about average for the bay, as we explored this 80m long vessel.
The LST sits upright on the bottom and has a very flat deck, the tanks held inside the ship in the wide holds. As we swam around the LST, following our guide Henry, we inspected vents, hatches, the bow gun emplacements (minus the guns), derricks and winches. The hull of the LST is encrusted with sponges, soft corals and sea whips, and populated with plenty of fish life; including butterflyfish, angelfish, surgeonfish, schools of snapper and a couple of batfish.
At the bow we descended to look at the landing doors. Covered in sea whips the outer doors were wide open, while the ramp is closed. You can drop into the holds, but it is very silty with not much to see. The wheelhouse of the LST is completely smashed, used as target practise as they sunk the ship. With bottom time quickly disappearing we had a quick look around the stern, seeing several lionfish, before returning to the surface.
We then headed over to a sheltered bay to dive the El Capitan. The El Capitan was an American cargo ship that was sunk in 1942. She doesn’t have any cargo on her, but the 90m long ship is still a great dive.
The ship lies on its port side in 22m, allowing plenty of bottom time to completely explore every nook and cranny. We investigated the bridge, cargo holds, funnel and masts and had a wonderful time. Numerous fish shelter on the wreck; including batfish, triggerfish, parrotfish, angelfish, snapper, sweetlips and anemonefish. On the sand were also numerous blue spotted stingrays and on the bow was a cute cuttlefish.
The main wrecks that Johan’s Dive Centre explore are only five to fifteen minutes by boat, so they run either single or double dives depending on demand. However, they have thirty wrecks they can dive within an hour radius of the shop and are still locating new wrecks every year. Around half of the wrecks are in less than 40m of water, but the rest are for Tek divers, in depths between 45m to 75m.
For the afternoon dive we headed out to explore the oldest shipwreck in the bay, the San Quintin. The San Quintin was a Spanish gunboat that was scuttled in 1898 as part of a blockade during the Spanish-American War.
The ship is now broken up in 16m of water and nearly always has good visibility, we enjoyed 15m. There was a surprising amount to see, lots of metal plates, the ships ribs, prop shaft, the partially intact bow and stern sections and two huge boilers. The San Quintin wreckage is decorated with lovely soft corals, sea whips, sponges and bushy black corals. Numerous fish reside on the wreck, but the highlight was a pair of sea moths. They may have been mating as they put on a magical performance as they slowly danced around each other.
The following day we were off to dive the main attraction in Subic Bay, the USS New York. The USS New York was a 116m long armoured cruiser built in 1891. She served her career under several different names and had been decommissioned and almost derelict in Subic Bay when World War II started. When the Japanese invaded the Philippines the Americans decided to scuttle the old warship, rather than let her fall into the hands of the Japanese. Today she rests on her port side in 28m and is one of the only battleships in the world that can be dived.
We were hoping for good visibility on the USS New York, and the viz. wasn’t too bad as we descended onto the side of the huge ship. In the 10m visibility we could see a wide hull covered in corals and reef fish, and also portholes and numerous gun emplacements. We followed Henry towards the stern to see the prop.
As we dropped down to inspect the large propeller the visibility turned green and dropped to 5m. It was great to dive a ship with a prop still in place, as most were salvaged after the war.
Moving onto the other side of the ship the water then turned a nasty shade of brown, the viz. now only 2m. But even with the limited visibility we were overwhelmed to see the massive twin eight inch guns. Two sets of eight inch guns remain on the USS New York, on the bow and stern, and they are an impressive sight. The gun barrels must be 5m long, making it very hard to photograph this weaponry in the poor visibility.
We then followed Henry along the ship’s deck, past the bridge, under the mast, which still has the crows nest in place, past the bow guns and onto the bow. Once back on the side of the ship the visibility improved and we then explored the cavernous hole of twisted metal caused by the explosion that sunk the warship.
This is one impressive warship, even in the poor visibility. Henry informed us that the visibility on the USS New York changes daily, the reason it does get such bad visibility at times is because of her position in a back bay and also from the covering of ash, a legacy of the 1991 eruption of nearby Mount Pinatubo.
The visibility wasn’t much better on the nearby Seian Maru, which is only a few hundred metres from the USS New York. This Japanese cargo ship was sunk by US warplanes and now sits in 26m. There is plenty to see, we explored the holds and bridge area, seeing abundant fish life.
The afternoon dive was fortunately a lot cleaner, we enjoyed 15m visibility as we dived The Barges. This site consists of dozens of pontoons and barges in 5m to 35m that were sunk after the war. The Barges are fun to explore, some are just huge steel blocks, but a few can be entered and others overlap forming caves. However, the highlight was all the marine life that can be seen. Corals cover many of the barges, and
we found schools of snapper, shrimps, crabs, nudibranchs, lionfish,
pipefish, parrotfish, rock cod, fusiliers, butterflyfish, angelfish and many
other reef fish. Even the sand around the barges was full of life, with blue
spotted stingrays darting about and also a colony of garden eels. This is also
said to be a great night dive.For our final day of diving at Subic Bay we returned to the USS New York for another look. The visibility hadn’t improved unfortunately, but we still had a ball diving this huge warship.
After lunch we dived a Japanese Patrol Boat that sits in 24m. This ship is 35m long and a lovely dive. We had time to do several circuits of the wreck, entering the wheelhouse and looking into other dark and silty rooms. As with all the wrecks in Subic Bay there was a good coverage of corals and plenty of reef fish and one large trevally.
Our final dive in Subic Bay was actually the best as we got to explore an LCU, or Landing Craft Utility. LCUs were 29m long troop carriers used by the USA during World War II to land troops on beaches in Europe and in many locations throughout the Pacific. This one was scuttled after the war and is one of several found in the bay.
The ship sits in 24m on a rocky slope. With 12m visibility we had a great time looking into the engine room, investigating winches, hatches, the landing ramp, the troop hold, vents and several small rooms. The fish life on the wreck was also impressive, schools of snapper and sweetlip, plus lionfish, batfish and butterflyfish.
While Subic Bay is not the prettiest destination we visited in the Philippines, we will remember it fondly for the fascinating and unique wrecks found in her calm waters.