The last Deep Week of the year took place for the first time ever in Coron, a magical island located in the northern part of Philippine province Palawan.
Coron is one of the biggest islands in the Calamari islands and is famous for the world class diving. Several sunken Japanese battleships from WW2 are located around the island and you have one of the world’s few dive:able (active) volcanic lakes here – Barracuda lake.
Every early morning of the week we headed out with boats to different dive spots, where the morning sessions usually took place in Barracuda lake.
I’ve never experienced anything like this place! The lake is located in a crater, protected from current and wind. The water is crystal clear and 30 degrees (Celsius) at the surface, at 15 m depth you have 39 degrees(!), at 25 m the water turns pitch black (I could not see my hand pinching my nose), and at 40 m you’ve reached the bottom where it’s clear and around 30 degrees again. It was an initially awkward feeling diving down through this diverse water, and it took a while to get used it. The best thing was the heat, we were diving in only swimsuits for several hours, and the visibility (before 25 m!). One thing that we were very careful with was hangs deeper than 10 m, since your dive response partly “reverses” due to the increase of temperature after around 10 m.
Coron was an amazing experience, the nature is breathtaking as the diving. The place is perfect for snorkeling and shallow scuba- and freediving. We found some spots deeper than 40 m, outside Barracuda lake, but it took a while to get there and the currents were quite strong. I truly recommend a visit!