Finding out that it was going to rain for the next few days Marlieke and my plans to motorbike around the island fell through and the contingency idea was for me to dive the various shipwrecks nearby.
Having only 30 minutes to spare I ran to the closest dive shop and joined a tour to head out to 3 shipwrecks near Coron town. Unknowingly that the tour was filled with non-English speaking Koreans, I'm not saying this is a bad thang but it would have been nice to be able to talk to someone on the journeys between wrecks. However it being a Korean organized tour the food was tasty and spicy - the way I like it.
So the diving - Epic! although the first dive I was given a faulty mask that I had a bit of an ordeal with on my first dive, despite the struggle to breathe at times when water would flood my mask I managed the situation and enjoyed all I could.
Out of the 3 Japanese ship wrecks I explored with my assigned dive master Erwin, the last was by far the best, named Olympia this ship is 120 meters in length, a Japanese army auxiliary supply ship that was sunk by the Americans (like all the other shipwrecks the the area) and lay 25 meters below the surface on its side.
In all honestly it would be near impossible to navigate through the wreck without a guide, from not only it being dark, the visibility was so-so and the way that the water magnifies your field of view can be extremely disorientating. Still, the experience was like no other, think haunted house, the movie Finding Nemo, the use of a flashlight to find your way whilst trying not to kick up too much sand in a narrow passage whilst breathing from a pressurized canister strapped to your back. Certainly not for those who are claustrophobic or scared of fish... Or diving, but for me it was a memory I won't soon forget.
First time divers really excited about the trip….
Olympia ship… so awesome to have ventured into the ship
A portrait of me drawn by the korean woman above
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