Coron is part of Palawan Province but is a separate area of islands around 100Km North of El Nido and the Palawan ‘mainland’. It CAN be reached by plane from El Nido, but there’s definitely still luggage restrictions on this route, so ferry was our only option – a 3.5 hour crossing costing £35-40 each, depending on shipping line – again double the cost of prices elsewhere in the Philippines. Our journey to the port was eventful as we’re not sure that motorcycle trikes are really designed to carry 2 big bags and 2 big people – we did feel the chassis of the passenger pod drop when we got in, and half a mile down the road the driver pulled over saying that his vehicle was broken. We’d like to think that it needed welding anyway and that it wasn’t the combined weight of us and our bags that broke it! Quickly transferred to another trike, we got to the port with loads of time to spare, but did notice the driver inspecting his suspension after we got out!!

When we bought the ferry tickets a couple of days earlier, there were 2 operators with offices next to each other – the boats looked similar, departed at the same time (12.30), both offered free Starlink WiFi, aircon and a 3.5 hour journey time, so we went with the cheaper Atienza Inter Island Ferries. On seeing the more expensive Jomalia Shipping vessel on arrival at the port we suspected that we may have made a mistake in our desire to save £10 – their boat was 3x the size of ours, a huge new stable catamaran with inside and outside seating whereas ours was rather more basic. Fingers crossed for a calm seas as our boat would definitely feel any waves more, and we took a preventative Stugeron just in case. In our assigned seats (in amongst the catering supplies), the crossing was thankfully smooth enough but we couldn’t see a thing out of the windows and missed the spectacular scenery that this passage is famous for, and it turned out that Atienza were probably a bit economical with the truth on journey time – it actually took 5 hours but they had to say that they’d take only as long as their competitors next door didn’t they? Looking at the comparative sizes of the boats, there was no way that their journey times would be the same but at least we got to Coron Port before it went dark – just. Then Debbie realised that people had been sitting outside for much of the journey even though the doors must not be opened at sea, and was disappointed that she’d not joined them in breaking the rules as the scenery looked gorgeous. A 15 minute trike ride, with no damage to the suspension that we know of, took us through Coron town and a further 1Km out to our hotel for the next 4 nights – Venus Royale – a nice new place with a large pool and only about £45/night including breakfast. After blowing our budget in El Nido, we resisted going for a more expensive pool view room, instead going for the mountain view option which turned out to be overlooking a commercial laundry. No matter, we only wanted the balcony to dry our wet stuff anyway.

Strangely, trikes rides in Coron are priced per person – PHP 30 each into town (about £0.80 for two of us), and on the occasions that we travelled solo the journey cost less than £0.40 (or free for Steve when the driver didn’t have any change). Someone needs to give these guys a lesson in basic economics but we’re not complaining! Coron is the main town on Busuanga island, a commercial shipping port and functional town – it’s not a ‘resort’ like El Nido but does have a good-enough selection of restaurants, shops and beauty salons. During our stay we found decent burgers (again with pineapple for Debbie), lovely pasta & Italian wine, Thai curries and a fabulous backstreet Filipino place with fish in coconut sauce to die for. Debbie had the all-important gel pedicure, alongside an education session on the life and loves of the ladyboy nail technician!

The reason for our visit to Coron was the fleet of 8 WWII Japanese ships sunk near Coron in 1944 and their remains apparently offering some of the world’s best wreck diving. Reggae Divers have a great reputation, and were a little different with Rasta-themed vehicles and boats – they didn’t have availability until our last day but we booked a 3-dive package with them, were collected from our hotel in a colourful trike before being transported out to the huge new dive boat ‘Rasta’ and onwards to the area of the wrecks (an hour from Coron).

• Kogyo Maru – a 135m cargo ship, sunk on 24 September 1944 and lying on her side at 22-36m. We dropped down the shot line to around 24m and then swam down the vertical deck to 30m and entered the engine room, to view the boilers. The engine itself had been removed. We went through a passageway from there to a cargo hold but Steve really wasn’t happy with his buoyancy of the unfamiliar and incomplete kit he had been issued (an OMS wing without a crotch strap) so balked at continuing to penetrate deeper into the wreck and exited through the large cargo hatch. The guide eventually noticed and we made our way back to the shot line over the outside of the wreck.
• Okinawa Maru – a 160m oil tanker, sunk on 9 October 1944 and lying upright at 10-26m. We decided to give this one a miss as the current was very strong and so all the diving needed to be in the enclosed structure of the ship with no big escape routes, and no option to look at the beautiful corals encrusting the wreck. Plus Steve hadn’t been happy on the first dive, and Debbie certainly wasn’t doing something like this without him. It turns out our decision was the right one – the surfacing divers and even one of the divemasters said that the currents had been challenging (understatement).
• Morazan Maru – a 93m cargo ship, formerly a British passenger ship, also sunk on 24 September 1944 and lying on her side at 12-26m. As soon as we got into the water, Steve wasn’t happy with his equipment, realising that the problem was that it was riding up around his armpits without a crotch strap to hold it down, and said he wasn’t doing the dive. Debbie put on her Big Girl Pants and decided to continue with the Divemaster for her first dive without Steve since qualifying 8 or 9 years ago, but didn’t want to go inside the wreck. It was a lovely dive (visibility wasn’t great though) – we saw a big seahorse, a shoal of squid, a crocodile fish, a huge grouper, the usual tropical fish and the upper side of the wreck was totally covered in beautiful huge coral. A lovely dive and a shame that Steve missed it.

Apart from the issue with Steve’s kit, Reggae Divers were a great operation and even gave us free beer after the last dive and a rum punch on arrival back at the shop. It’s a shame that we only had 1 day for diving 🙁

It had been clear on arrival into Coron that the surrounding land-and sea-scapes were at least as awe inspiring as those of El Nido, and that there was more to this area than just the wreck diving. On the recommendation of our dive centre, we sought out Calamian Islands Travel & Tours and booked their Super Ultimate Tour of Coron Island, a couple of miles across the straits from Coron town. WOW – this blew the El Nido tours out of the water!

• A couple of great snorkelling stops with beautiful coral, an abundance of marine life and a sea turtle throw in for good measure.
• The amazing Barracuda Lake with crystal clear water and striking underwater rock formations and vertical walls. Steve had a free diving lesson and Debbie didn’t as she can’t duck dive.
• A climb up/down 300 steps to get the most magnificent views and a swim in the massive lake
• More kayaking (Debbie’s shoulder still not really up for it though) – firstly through a mangrove forest and later stopping at Twin Lagoons where there was a very low and narrow passageway in the rocks to get between them.
• Finally a chill spot, after a full-on but amazing day, at Beach 91 with more white sand, turquoise water and dogs trying to attack a huge Monitor Lizard (it got away).

Overall Debbie liked Coron more than El Nido and in hindsight we perhaps should have spent more time here and less in El Nido and got a 2nd diving day. The islands around Coron are gorgeous, and there are some expensive 5* and private island resorts and big yachts moored in bays – staying at one of those, with great diving would be nice – perhaps next time. Steve thoughts were that the town was a bit of a dump but the surrounding islands were magnificent.

Our flight back to Cebu was from the TINY Coron airport (a landing strip and hut, on pretty much the only flat part of the mountainous island), on a little Cebgo (the low cost arm of Cebu Pacific Airways) prop plane which flew low and slow but somehow managed to avoid the ominous thunder clouds en-route. We spent our last night in The Philippines in exactly the same way as our first – at the apartment near Cebu Airport, with takeaway pizza and beer from the restaurant downstairs – and set off far too early for the airport as Debbie was worried about taxi availability at 5am. It turned out that a Grab car was less than a minute away and we were at the airport a whole 3 hours before our flight.

So that’s the end of our month in The Philippines – a beautiful country that we only saw a tiny part of, great value (except El Nido), quite like Thailand but arguably more beautiful and with better diving, but without the culture and amazing food that Thailand offers. It was as humid as hell though, but we think that most of SE Asia is at this time of year.

Next stop, somewhere completely different – Japan……