A Jaunt to Coron

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I made the extremely difficult decision to leave EL Nido. Let's move on. So Ghay and I headed north to Coron (still in Palawan) for a last vacation together, from where I would catch a flight to Manila.

We took the illustrious "Princess Welia," a small bangka (boat) sure to stand the waters between the islands. Everyone commented on how lucky we were that the waters were so calm. Everyone was laughing and generally okay. An hour later, I threw up my rice breakfast. After Ghay stopped laughing at me, he dragged me on TOP of the boat. I was hoisted, very ungracefully, by 2 crewmen and Ghay, which involved a whistle stuck in a rope, shouts of "I'm stuck I'm stuck!" and "I hate thissss." I sprawled out, concentrating on breathing
and not falling off the boat, and lo and behold, I began to feel better. But not before Ghay managed to take a series of reprehensible photos. I will share one to explain my pain. Thank God there was pleasant scenery! And it did feel better to stretch out and feel the breeze with no one else around.


7 hours later we arrived in Coron, an interesting dive town. There
is no beach. The town stretches out over the water on stilted boardwalks made of wood and bamboo. Very interesting look, but it was hard not to notice the trash underneath in places. We stayed at Crystal lodge, which was nice.

One of Ghay's friends, Welfred, is a dive instructor in Coron,
and he had previously visited El Nido. So we met up with him and quickly joined him and his friend, Melody, in some good fun. Welfred had already agreed to teach me to dive, so the fun began! Unfortunately Ghay had a fever (if it's not one of us, it's the other!) and had to sit the first day out.
The lessons took place in open water, on a sandy plane with supposedly calm water. Just my luck, the wind was up, and the water was pretty choppy. But I told myself, if I can learn in this, I can dive anywhere! It got so bad the second day that we had to postpone skills for a lake the last day! But the cool thing during training was a giant school of barracudas that danced all around us for about 30 seconds- 40 to 50 of them, all 2-3 feet long!It was very tiring, and I was asleep by 10 every night while the others went and had some fun! Haha, its ok.

Finally, I graduated! We celebrated with three WWII wreck dives, which is what Coron is famous for. The technical skills were very hard, so Welfred took me down a few minutes after the group so I wouldn't be nervous (what a guy). I think I did okay, but boy was it scary! I was so disoriented swimming in those sunken ships. We had underwater flashlights, but at times you could see only where your light was - I was very afraid of swimming into a steel pole! Welfred was a gent and took hold of my arm a few times to guide me through. Over all, it was such an incredible experience. Coron is one of the only places that lets you in the wrecks without a wreck diving specialty. It felt so eerie to be swimming in a sunken battleship, and, lame I know, but all I could think about was the movie Titanic. Haha. For more information about the wrecks, look at
http://www.seadiveresort.com/divesites-trips.html . I did the Okikawa Maru, Akitsushima, and Morazan Maru.

The other highlight of diving in Coron is Barracuda Lake, a reverse thermal lake which varies in temperatures at different depths. It
ranges from a cool 80 at the top to a piping 104 degrees at the bottom!! Crazy! Felt like you were swimming through a hot tub. We didn't have to wear wet suits for that one!

Kinds of fish I saw: clown fish, angel fish, squid, barracudas, Spanish dancers, tons of corals, huge groupers and more that I have no idea what they were! Amazing.

Had some more fun times for a great last trip together, but then it was time for me to catch my flight for Manila so I could go to Donsol to swim with whale sharks. More on that later.

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