Phillipines

[Ferg3333]

I'm looking at booking the phillipines tomorrow for february time the plan is to fly to manilla and then onto coron with a stopover in singapore. Does anyone have any useful information, dive centres to avoid recommend etc.

Cheers

[rooster]

Graham_HK is a goldmine of useful info and really helped with my trip there last year - if you can track him down i am sure he can help.

I am not much use on Coron as I didnt go there, but if you need any help on PG, Malapascua or Boracay give me a shout.

Also for Singapore, as I lived there for 4 months.

Regards




Roy

[Adrian Kelland]

Originally Posted by Ferg3333

I'm looking at booking the phillipines tomorrow for february time the plan is to fly to manilla and then onto coron with a stopover in singapore. Does anyone have any useful information, dive centres to avoid recommend etc.

Cheers

When I went to Coron, we used Dive Right They could supply nitrox and even some manifolded twins. I could not fairly say if they are better or worse than any others in Coron. We were there for nearly 2 weeks and had no problems. Also make sure you do baracuda lake.

The diving is mainly WWII wrecks, but these are well salvaged. It is possible to swim up prop shaft in to the engine room - no prop & no engine. However the life on them was very good. All our diving was from large our-rigger boats - bankers IIRC. Food and drink was good.

One possible down side - pearl farms. These were on the increase and have a large capacity to destroy the vis. All the food and nutrients they are fed changing the balance in the water. Sometimes the vis was little different from average UK.

Travel, watch your weight. Everything including us was weighed to get the balance right on the packing crate that flies to Coron. You could always buy shorts & T shirts there, or take less and get them washed.

Accomodation - basic. A place with it's own generator is a bonus. There were almost daily powercuts when we were there. Bucket showers can apply... The food was good, although butchery can be 'different'; take one chicken and chop into bits... Meat in the market is very fresh. If you are up early you will see it walking to market.

Tips - well when we were there $20US was about a months wages for a cleaner. We tipped the kid who had been serving us all week - his eyes lit up. We had given him several months wages - it was a few dollars each for us.

Internet access - no problem. Just remember to turn off images to get a bit of speed.

Any questions just post.

Adrian

[Ferg3333]

What Big marine life am I likey to see, I'd looked at baracuda lake looks more fun than hodge to get into. Cheers for all the help

[Adrian Kelland]

Originally Posted by Ferg3333

What Big marine life am I likey to see, I'd looked at baracuda lake looks more fun than hodge to get into. Cheers for all the help

It was a climb!

Saw nothing big there. Small stuff - ghost pipe fish or similar, but nothing really big - sharks or mantas

[westside]

Just came back from the Philippines at Easter. We flew out with Qatar and this gave us an extra 10kg, for the flight to Coron we booked 3 seats for each buddy pair to give the extra luggage allowance which I think was only 10kg so this gave us the extra allowance without this you may have problems carrying your luggage. Having said that we dived with Dive rite and they were very good, accommodation was clean, air conditioned and food good. They had a laundry and for a large bag this only cost 150 PH peso £2ish so you can afford not to carry clothes.

The wrecks were good, yes picked over to some extend but they are all still in tacked. Sea life is not as plentiful as the red sea and is all on a smaller scale but you get some different speceies; we had an interesting encounter with a banded sea snake.

we went onto Subic which has good wrecks but the viz was not great.

Hope this helps. wish we were going with you.
Heather

[Adrian Kelland]

Originally Posted by westside

Just came back from the Philippines at Easter. We flew out with Qatar and this gave us an extra 10kg, for the flight to Coron we booked 3 seats for each buddy pair to give the extra luggage allowance which I think was only 10kg so this gave us the extra allowance without this you may have problems carrying your luggage. Having said that we dived with Dive rite and they were very good, accommodation was clean, air conditioned and food good. They had a laundry and for a large bag this only cost 150 PH peso £2ish so you can afford not to carry clothes.

The wrecks were good, yes picked over to some extend but they are all still in tacked. Sea life is not as plentiful as the red sea and is all on a smaller scale but you get some different speceies; we had an interesting encounter with a banded sea snake.

we went onto Subic which has good wrecks but the viz was not great.

Hope this helps. wish we were going with you.
Heather

Yep I forgot that we had extra seats booked - there were a couple of photographers in the group too!

I'd go back, but there are other new places to see first.

Adrian