Wanderlust Heaven!

Coron is known for its Japanese WW2 wrecks, as mentioned last week, and I was there to visit them. I had already done a few dives from Sangat Island, and wanted to do a few more from Coron. On Friday, my first full day there, I went with the Sea Divers shop boat out to the Akitsushima wreck, which I had seen a couple days before. Our guide was a local named Tantan – good guy, tremendous garlic breath. Anyway, I had previously only dived around the outer sections of the wreck, and only gone inside a fairly wide-open section. This time, we achieved full penetration – no snide remarks, please, that’s the terminology they seem to use. Quite an experience (isn’t full penetration always?). Got a glimpse of a few torpedos/bombs, the generator/engine, and a huge turbine wheel . Visibility wasn’t that great, though…and the light that the dive shop provided was weak. So it was slow going, and I was awkward. At one point I nicked my finger on a piece of metal – Yamashita’s Revenge, as it were. A little blood appeared, and I applied some direct pressure while continuing my dive. I had a faint fear of the blood attracting some descendant of Jaws, but the blood stopped straightaway and nothing nasty emerged.

Second dive that day was the Kogyo Maru, a 160 meter wreck at 20-34 meters. Also went inside that one – some very tight fits. Wreck diving is a far cry from what I’d experienced and it took some getting used to. For one, you can’t go straight up if you get spooked – so you need to maintain your composure and count to ten. In this wreck, to get through some passageways I had to turn sideways so that the tank and I would slide through. And at one point I snagged my regulator hose and played myself a brief internal movie of the hose getting sliced and me gasping desperately for air in the dark of the ship. But the hose slid off when I moved it, and it was in one piece. Learned a lot about diving that day.

I wasn’t impressed by Sea Divers, though. I dove on Nitrox on each of the two dives. For the Akitsushima, I dove with a 32% oxygen mixture, which is a good blend for depths of approximately 32-35 meters. On the Kogyo Maru, we were given 36% – which has a max depth of 30-32 meters. After that, you risk oxygen toxicity and potential convulsions. Well, when we were inside the Kogyo Maru we were hovering around 30 meters or so – was hard to tell because it was quite dark and not easy to see my watch. Then, right when I was starting to get concerned about the depth, my watch lit up and started to beep. Great. We were at/just over the max depth and the watch was warning me. I ascended a few meters, as far as I could, and was very careful to stay high during the balance of the dive. When we were all back on the boat, safe and sound, I asked Tantan the guide why we had used 36%. He told me that it was because 34% wasn’t available. That was not the right answer, and I was annoyed.

I spoke my mind to another diver, Steve, later on. Steve had been diving in Coron for a month or so and seemed quite sure of himself – and every single topic that was being discussed. During the entire hour-long ride from Coron to the wrecks, and back at the end of the day, Steve was holding court – about diving (despite his relative inexperience – he had been licensed only months before), about the Coron wrecks, about underwater photography, and about his travels. I got visibly tired of his spew after a few minutes – but the other divers, Mike and Liz, seemed not to mind his blather and I was thus able to remove myself from the conversation and take in the scenery, fresh air, and peacefulness of the setting.

I told Steve that I thought the dive shop was pretty sloppy in giving us 36% for the Kogyo Maru dive. Steve’s response was nearly word-for-word from the PADI Nitrox coursebook – a diver is responsible for his/her own blend. All right, fair enough – but it wasn’t as if I had dove the Kogyo Maru previously, and it wasn’t as if there were any discussion of the ship’s profile and the blend options beforehand. The tanks were simply loaded onto the boat in Coron and that was that. Before we dove, we each verified the contents of our respective tanks – that’s really what the PADI book is getting at. The dive shop needs to be careful about matching the right depths with the right blends – then handing the tank to the diver to verify. I mentioned the story to a few others, including the Otto’s Pub gang later that night, and they were taken aback. And Sea Divers is off their game in other ways, too – their equipment is awful, with O-rings on the tanks often in bad shape, the BCDs are tatty, and the booties (for the fins) ripped. In all it seems a ragged operation and the only real thing going for it is its key location – you need to make an effort to go with another shop. Here’s Sea Dive – café, dive shop, and hotel all located on the main pier in town:

Enough complaining. Later that day, went over to the SEAir shop to try to get a seat on the Tuesday morning flight down to El Nido. I had tried the previous day, upon arriving in Coron, and the clerk said that the flight was full. I asked about wait-list – she said there were 3 people on it, no need to add my name. I left…but felt later that I should have gotten on the wait-list. So here I was again…I added my name, then the clerk double-checked the latest situation and the next thing I knew, I was on the flight and paying with my credit card. Weird. Lesson learned, though – things are very fluid here and it always pays to get on a list.

Did a bit of yoga in my room – was a hard squeeze between the two beds in there, but I got through most of the asanas (postures) and felt clear-headed afterward. Then I went for a run, not having gone in a few days. The ‘National Highway’ in Coron is straight for about a kilometer, then it climbs steadily for another 1-2 km. I made it to the top, near the Kokosnuss Hotel, and was nearly spent by the effort – the heat was brutal, even after dark. Went back to the guesthouse for a shower, then over to Otto’s Pub to chat with the gang there. They recommended a few other places for a drink – one, Bottle Ground, was right across the street, so went there and sat through a few mangled karaoke songs before heading back to the hotel. A couple deep dives…yoga…hard run…I was asleep in minutes.

Saturday was busy. Needed to do an assortment of errands, most of them annoying, all of them necessary. Called a few hotels and made booking for the balance of my time in Palwan, plus later trips to Cebu and Manila. Took my backpack to the local tailor (little shack, actually), as it had ripped. Got a haircut…sat next to a pastor who recommended that I visit a nearby leper colony. Made a mental note to check my skin later that day. Did a bit of online research for new camera and laptop. Read a couple private equity documents sent to me, and sent some email replies out. Finally, did a bit of administrative stuff on my laptop – copied a few files to my external hard drive, in anticipation of getting a replacement laptop in a few weeks. When your laptop gets trashed (see previous entries), it creates a world of pain and I’m looking forward to getting through the process when I go to the US in late July.

So Saturday wasn’t particularly exciting, just productive…but as I was taking the backpack to the tailor, I saw a random fellow looking at me from across the street. He stared at me…I kept walking in his direction…he held out his hand. I shook it, wondering who the hell he was and what he was selling/requesting. Then I got it…he (Alan) and I had gone diving at the same shop, Asia Divers, in Puerto Galera about two months beforehand. We had a few brief conversations there, along with his wife Janine, and then gone our separate ways without really saying goodbye. Now we were in the same place again, randomly, after a couple months of treading around the RP on separate paths. It’s not unusual to see the same people over and over – I’ve remarked on this in earlier entries. It’s something I first noticed in the Indian Himalaya in ’92, and it’s been noticeable during this trip as well. But it is somewhat unusual to see people after a few months – usually you see them along precisely the same route. Anyway, Alan and Janine are a couple very cool Britons and I was happy they were here in Coron.

After taking care of my errands I took a trike over to an area called Caltex, a recommendation that the Otto’s Pub gang had given me the previous evening. They had refused to tell me about the place, but I surmised that it was a sleazy videoke parlor – and I was spot on. There are 2 or 3 little bars on this strip, on the pier past the public market, and they don’t get many foreigners there. I was a bit of a celebrity – and was asked to sing a few songs with the drunken local guys. The girls were wandering round in bras and panties – but I can’t say it was particularly provocative, it felt like a workaday atmosphere (probably because it was), and the dirt floors and mangy dogs roaming around only detracted from any exoticism the place may have had. I got out of there after a couple beers and stuck the experience deep in some cranial chamber for future reference, i.e. what sort of bars should I avoid in the future.

Walked over the Sea Divers café, where I expected to see some familiar faces. Alan, Janine, and their friend (from El Nido), Mario the Aussie, were sitting in the pole position on the back porch, drinking and smoking away. I invited myself to join them, and pretty soon it was like old times. We had lots of stories to trade on our time in Puerto Galera, but we soon moved to the routes we’d taken in the RP. Alan and Janine have seen a hell of a lot in their 3-4 months in-country, and I thought they’d visited most of the best places I know of. I think they’re big fans of the RP and its good to observe other people getting to know and enjoy this crazy yet rewarding land…

We moved over to The Bistro for dinner. This is by far the best place to eat in Coron, it’s run by a wild-looking French (retired) anthropologist. Had a good meal and chat there, must have been at table for close to 3 hours. Random animal spottings while there – a street kitty was meowing constantly and hung around for most of the night. And we spotted two geckos thrashing wildly together on the wall – our conclusion was that it was a rare sighting of gecko love.

Good chat, covering lots of ground. Alan and Janine also do a blog – she does the text, he handles the photos. Good division of labor – and helps me understand why my Slog features mediocre text AND graphics. Anyway…I was greatly reassured to hear from them that they’ve also spent countless hours in Internet cafes posting the entries. We’ve all gotten much better – with the primary bottleneck addressed being the slimming down of photo file sizes. We traded a few tips on that.

We also excoriated Sea Divers for their mediocre operation. I mentioned my Nitrox horror story; they told me that a 14-year-old girl was there getting her Open Water certificate, and taking a camera down with her during her training dives. That’s not exactly according to manual. And other assorted transgressions were brought up – not bringing flashlights when going inside wrecks…not having gloves or hoods, despite the danger of cutting yourself on the metal…etc. Sometimes it’s fun to bitch and moan – particularly when you’re probably justified in doing so!

Alan and I went to Bottle Ground, the videoke place, later that night. There weren’t any songs being sung – the machine was turned off. We counted our blessings and simply sat and chatted. A pleasant young woman was brought over to sit with us…she was quite nice. Turns out she and her two sisters, from Cebu, all work at the bar and were there that night. Random.

We left around 1:30 a.m. or so, a few beers deep. Right when we hit the street, the lights went out – brownout. Looked up at the sky and it was a beautiful deep blue, with a fantastic array of stars – really wonderful. We stood there and caught our breath. Then, of course, we finished up with a few character assassinations (of other, lesser divers) before we parted ways. I had a 10-minute walk back to my hotel (Alan was staying at Sea Divers – which really is the nerve center of town). As I came over the hill, a firefly showed itself above and in front of me, and I followed its light back to the lodge.

Which was barred and locked. Who knows why…perhaps things get dodgy when the lights go out. Or perhaps it was just the lateness of the hour. In any event, I made some noise, a guy came across the street to help, no avail, made some more noise, finally an employee came out and let me in. Something about getting the hotel’s generator started. I didn’t much care, I was fried and wanted to sleep. We were diving the next day.

That turned out to be one of the better days of diving I’ve had. It was me, Alan and Janine, Mike and Liz (victims of our character assassination), and the Sea Divers crew. We went to Coron Island, to dive the well-known Barracuda Lake, which has layers of fresh, brackish, and salt water, and different temperatures at the various levels. We landed at the pier…then had a short, surprisingly hard little hike over some sharp karst formations, with our BCD and tanks on our backs. Not easy. By the time we slid into the lake, we were thankful, and ready for some fun.

What diving! When you pass through the ‘barrier’ between fresh and salt water, it becomes murky – I think the German word for the haze is ‘schlerin,’ which you also see when you BBQ meat, and when you’re outside on a very hot day and vehicle emissions cloud the air. And the temperature of the lake varies drastically – in the fresh water section my watch read 30 degrees C, whereas in the salt water it jumped to 36 degrees C. I felt like I was cooking when in the hottest parts. Mike (not me) plunged his entire arm and head into the soft, muddy bottom of the lake and that was good for a laugh. Alan also went for a gunk-dive there. I avoided the muck, but headed into a dark, reddish deep section…and when I was inside, it was so dark I couldn’t see a thing. It was like a black hole…I didn’t stay in there for long, worrying that I might get disoriented and never get out again.

Next dive was mellow – it was along a lengthy coral wall, not that much marine life but it was a good dive for perfecting buoyancy, form, and breathing. We surfaced where Mike and Liz were snorkeling, and called it a day.

Back to shore. Backpack was stitched up…did a few emails…took a much-needed nap. Strange how your day gets completely filled and you worry about getting ‘everything’ ‘done’ even when you’re on holiday and have no job to get back to…

While we were having an excellent day of diving, Mario was not. We all met in the Helldivers Bar (that name does it for me, for some reason), and Mario told us all about the sins of Sea Divers that day. Many of the same transgressions as covered previously – lack of flashlights (torches, in British), no gloves, divers brought inside wrecks when not ready for that, etc. Mario seemed pretty down…I told him about another dive shop, where Thomas the German works. I had met and hung out with Thomas on Sangat Island, and it was obvious he was a diligent fellow (he’s German, after all). I suggested to Mario that he go over to the Crystal Lodge and see about going with their dive shop and Thomas. He did that, the next morning, and went out with that operation. Thomas was still on Sangat, but the shop had a Canadian divemaster and he was apparently good. Mario returned from that day in far better spirits and was back to his regular upbeat self.

As for me…well, I wasn’t paying my own demons enough heed. After a relaxed day, which included a very nice hour or so spent at the nearby Makinit Hot Springs, the evening again concluded with a session at the Bottle Ground. This time the videoke machine was going full tilt and Alan, Mario and I joined in. I stuck to a few crowd-pleasers that I know from my time in Asia, and which I’ve mentioned in earlier postings. I was pretty happy with my rendition of James Ingram’s ‘Just Once.’ Alan did a R.E.M. number, Mario did ‘Yellow Submarine,’ then Alan and our female minder collaborated on an Atlantic Starr hit the name of which eludes me. But quite good. I was semi-mindful that I was scheduled to fly early the next morning to El Nido, on the Palawan mainland. The flight was at 7:50 a.m., the jeepney to the airport was leaving town at 6 a.m. Ugh. That loomed large, yet we sat there and I let Alan and Mario buy me some ‘final beers.’ We had a friendly banter with the locals at the table next to us…at one point it seemed to deteriorate (Alan later told me he had my back – good man), but we somehow put it right and that was that.

We got out of there, hides basically intact, at 3 a.m. or thereabouts. I got back to the hotel (again having to cause a ruckus to gain entry), and finished my packing, aware that I would be nearly useless in 2 hours upon awakening. It was good that I did all that – because I woke at 8:30 a.m., having badly missed both jeepney and flight. So now I was all ready to go to El Nido – but the plane was gone, my bags were packed, and I was in a somewhat fucked state. But at the same time – it really wasn’t all bad. I called the El Nido hotel and told ‘em that I would be a day late (I knew there was a boat heading there on Wednesday, the next day). I grabbed some money, a credit card, my dive watch, and headed down to Sea Divers to see about diving that day. I thought that Alan and Janine were diving and I’d try to join them.

At least that went to plan – Alan stumbled into the café, said hi, and before his glassy eyes could focus I told him that I missed my flight and that I’d be diving with them. Cool. Had some coffee and food, then headed out with Tantan for another day of play-it-by-ear diving with Sea Divers.

And had a great day – was pretty much happy that I missed the El Nido flight. While we were waiting to go out, Alan and I were remarking on the nasty, festering state of the little canal under Sea Divers. Locals use the canal as a garbage can, and there are all sorts of things floating about. Alan spotted a ‘Filipino Bagfish’ while I pointed out a ‘Filipino Blue-nosed Bottlefish.’ That was a good laugh, although the topic was far from funny.

We did three dives, at Alan’s behest, and I felt especially comforted that I was at least having a full day of diving, with new friends, instead of sitting at the hotel under a cloud for having screwed up my flight.

The three dives, all good, were the Tangat cargo ship, the Olympia Maru, and the Lusong gunboat. Loads of fun and had a blast trading travel tales with Alan and Janine. It was like our own private dive boat and a memorable day indeed. Here are the Brits, pre-dive:

Was quite tired from the previous night’s mayhem and from the 3 dives, so had a quick dinner at the café with the gang. We said our second set of farewells – I really did plan to get the boat to El Nido the next morning. Alan managed to wind me up by pointing out that a couple I found naïve annoying would be on the same boat with me. Ugh. I think that Janine was a little cross with me for being so close-minded – but I can’t help it, I just can’t stand some people and have a hard time changing my mind. After all, I’m not a woman…

Our ship (which I made, by the way) was the Jezebel, a fairly capacious bangka. The annoying couple got on, but went straight back to an enclosed room (with life jackets) at the stern and we barely saw them the entire ride. With me in front were 3 fellows, 2 Swiss and 1 British. All cool. The ride was 7-8 hours, the weather was mostly excellent, and it truly felt like we were traveling through a world composed of water with a few specks of land thrown in by some divine, half-crazed artist just for effect. We chatted for an hour or so, then fanned out a bit. Lots of laying about and stretching our bodies to fit the contours of the boat and environment…

I listened to my iPod for a few hours – hadn’t listened to music (besides videoke) in a while and wanted to do that. Started off with Back in Black by ACDC…segued to some Black Lab – first, their amazing debut Your Body Above Me, then their second CD See the Sun – also quite good. Then some Macy Gray, her first album, which doesn’t have a single throwaway track, and which reminds me of my early days working in Sydney, having left an awful project in Tokyo – had bought the Macy Gray disc and that helped me get jazzed up for yet another challenging project (at least that one was set in the wonderful world of Oz).

The boat had trolled a fishing line behind it the entire ride – and managed to catch a decent-sized jackfish. Here it is:

I enjoyed the ride and found myself at the front from time to time, obscuring the skipper’s vision:

Watched bizarre flying fish launch themselves out of the boat’s frontal wake and send themselves 10-20 meters across the waves. Not too sure how they do that. And saw a pack (right term?) of dolphins playing as we neared El Nido:

Got to El Nido, which is set amongst a wild collection of little karst mountain islands known as the Bacuit Archipelago. I had wanted to see El Nido for a while, and had heard from Alan/Janine/Mario about its grandeur. Even though I was a day or so late – thanks to my flight mishap – I’d have 4-5 days here and planned to get out on boats and see the surroundings. Here’s a shot coming in from the water:

Got in around 5 p.m. A bit later than I like, given the need to hunt down a room. Rosanna’s, which the Brits had recommended, was booked out – wasn’t in the mood for a lengthy search, so just went with the nearby Laly & Abet Cottages. Then went down the beach and found my 3 shipmates, who were bunking together at a nameless, but decent, little place nearby. We walked down to the Arts Café, the nerve center of El Nido (for foreigners, anyway), and had a beer, a bite, and signed up for a boat tour the next day. We’d be seeing several islands, lagoons and beaches, all within an hour from town. Sounded superb.

When I had checked in to the hotel, I ran into a British couple whom I’d met in Sangat, run into in Coron, and now was seeing again in El Nido. You know how that works by now, gentle readers. We had agreed to meet for dinner at Squiddo’s, a standard meeting place for tourists. Met them there…the three lads joined us…we got the lowdown from the couple about El Nido. The night got weird, though, when we started hearing loud and unsteady rumblings from a woman at the bar behind us. Turns out she owns a nearby resort (well, her Canadian husband does, apparently)…and had some chip on her shoulder about her education/English/business/place in life. She was getting way out of hand…and it seems the Squiddo’s owners (a Frenchman and his Filipina wife) couldn’t do much to shut her up. Seems the Frenchman is good mates with the nutty woman’s husband…for what that’s worth. He did his best but she kept on shouting…our muted protests had no effect so we tried to intervene and get her to keep it down…but that only encouraged her and her tirade. We finally paid up and left, giving some lip to the owners. And we had a hell of a shouting match with the witch on the way out – I’m afraid I deliberately yanked her chain and she sent us off with some nasty words. Bizarre, to say the least – haven’t had that sort of unpleasantness here before. Will be watching my back for the next few days…

Had a few final drinks at a beach bar. Kept an eye and ear out for the crazy lady, but no signs. We later saw her, still sitting at the Squiddo’s Bar, when we went back to the hotel for the night. Everyone kept mum and that was probably for the best. I may just write a nasty remark in Lonely Planet’s online Thorn Tree discussion board about her and her resort – it’s called Las Cabanas, in case you’re interested. The woman said she didn’t care if we dissed her resort in Lonely Planet, so consider this a warning volley. You really don’t want to stay anywhere near her…

Next day (today), went out on the island tour (Version A – there are two other set tours), with the 3 guys from the Jezebel boat. Spent a lot of time at Miniloc Island – which has two beautiful lagoons, the smaller of which you need to visit by swimming through a narrow crevice. Also visited a ‘secret lagoon’ through a hole in a karst wall, and the lovely Seven Commandos Beach. Really wish I had an underwater camera – but give me a few more weeks.

Fantastic day – my words, and photos, really can’t do justice to the islands and seas. And I’m probably too weary at this point even to give it a good shot, so let me leave you with a few photos of the seascape, and the unparalleled sunset from the front porch, and I promise to tell you more next week. Over and out.