Coron Bay

Coron Town, which is confusingly situated on Busuanga Island, not Coron Island, is the jump-off point for most Coron Bay adventures. Many travelers discover Coron Bay on island-hopping tours, which explore the lagoons and beaches of Coron Island, islets such as Pass Island, Banana Island, and Bulog Dos Island, plus caves, coral gardens, and more.

Snorkelers can experience Coron Bay’s shallowest Japanese wrecks, the Lusong Gunboat Wreck and the East Tangat Wreck, as well as Skeleton Wreck, which is not a WWII boat. However, most wrecks are so deep that they require advanced scuba certification and some are only suitable for trained wreck divers with full equipment.

• Coron Bay is a great choice for island-hoppers, scuba divers, and snorkelers.
• Safety standards in Coron dive centers vary widely. You shouldn’t enter a closed environment, like a wreck, unless you have wreck penetration training and specialist equipment, so check your dive plan before entering the water.
• To go island-hopping around Coron, you’ll need sufficient mobility to climb in and out of a boat in shallow water: Speedboats are easier to access than bangka outriggers, which require you to scramble over the gunwales.

Coron Town on Busuanga Island is the starting point for many Coron Bay tours. Busuanga Island’s Francisco B. Reyes Airport (USU), a 13-mile (20-kilometer) drive from Coron Town, has direct flights from Cebu, Manila, and El Nido on Palawan island. Regular fast ferries run from El Nido to Coron in 3.5 hours.

Most people prefer to visit Coron Bay during the dry season (roughly, December through May), with tourist numbers peaking around the Christmas/New Year and Easter holidays. Divers find visibility on the wrecks is best between December and March, and worst at the peak of the rainy season, from July to September.

There’s more to diving in Coron than wrecks alone. Scuba junkies shouldn’t miss the weird and wonderful critters around the thermoclines of Coron Island’s Barracuda Lake, or the chance to dive with dugong off Busuanga Island. But most dive travelers are focused on the Sunken Japanese Wrecks: Highlights include the Akitsushima, with a crane and anti-aircraft guns still visible, the Okikawa Maru, an oil tanker that’s shallow enough for open water divers to experience, and the Olympia Maru freighter.