This is the first part of my recent trip to the Philippines, be warned it's long.
The flight from Dubai was rather uneventful, and I managed fours sleep out of the eight-hour flight. Arrival at Manila in Terminal 3 was a new experience as my previous six trips had been at Terminal 1. The whole process took less than 30 mins from disembarking to meeting the pick-up driver for the Holiday Inn.
We overnighted in Manila, Holiday Inn, Makati, which is attached to Glorietta Mall, and this gave us an opportunity to pick up some other items such as mosquito repellant, mouthwash, etc. We departed at 0800 for Subic Bay the next morning, arriving around 1230, traffic was stop / start for around 75% of the journey. Our driver Edgar was very cheerful and kept us entertained.
The staff at Johan’s are very friendly, however the room I had booked was not particularly to my liking so we moved to a much larger room that had space for me to work on my camera, as there is no camera room at this dive center.
Pretty soon we had organized our first dive for late afternoon on Lighthouse Reef, just the two of us with a guide Eljon. The boat departed around 15:30, so we had lunch and organized our gear etc.
The dive was quite pleasant on a reef that had seen better days I am sure, no big fish of course, and a rather disappointing nudibranch count, although it was great to be back in a 3mm wetsuit and warm water (28C).
After we returned I had a chat with Johan regarding our planned dives in particular the A2 Savage, and if Andy Davies had been in touch as I was having issues trying to contact Andy by phone.
The water was rather choppy when we had returned from the dive and the forecast was not too great for the next few days. Given that the Savage and the F4 Phantom are just outside Subic Bay, this meant that unless it was flat calm we would not be diving these two wrecks.
Later that evening Andy pitched up and we had a discussion regarding the dive plans for Sunday, which was to be the Tabby (45m) and the Skyraider (35m). Both dives would be deco dives using a 50% deco mix. The weird thing that neither Kerstin nor I could understand was the 10:00 am departure time especially as we noticed that the sea was calming down later on.
Sunday morning 0700, it was flat calm. We arranged our cameras, I changed over to wide angle, sorted out our gases etc., and the guys transferred everything to a larger boat different from what we used the day before.
It was good to note that all tanks must be analysed and properly labelled by each diver, I had actually brought my own O2 analyser with me, as in the past in the Philippines I have been offered a tank allegedly containing EAN32 and no analyser to check the contents.
Although this boat was larger and had a cabin, it was anything but stable, and the “captain” had to steer it like he had had a bottle rum for breakfast, it was almost impossible to keep it on an even keel, rather bizarre, and not for those who don’t have sea legs.
First dive was on the Tabby, I had some slight issues with my ears, not unusual, however they soon clicked and we descended down to 45M with a decent view of the tail of the plane from 35M. visibility was a reasonable 10M.
The Tabby, a Japanese version of the Douglas DC3 built under licence pre-WWII by Showa, is upside down with both engines ripped off, one of which is nearby. We had a planned 25 min bottom time and a total 56 min run time (check) using a lean nitrox mix (25%) with a 15L steel tank plus our deco gas in an S40.
Landing Gear port side (the plane is upside down)
The cockpit has broken off and twisted to one side, you can make out one of the control columns
Port side Cargo door
We had a quick tour around and also ventured out to where the remains of one of the engines was still resting, returned to the shot line and ascended.
Surface conditions were choppier now, and all the more I couldn’t understand why we did not leave earlier. After changing the tanks for the second dive and a 90min surface interval we did our second splash, my ears were in synch and we descended quickly onto the best placed shot line ever right next to the outer starboard 20mm cannon.
The Skyraider is sitting upright and is a special version that carried a four-man crew. (AD-4 version). Visibility was not as good as on the Tabby but still reasonable to see the whole aircraft. The big surprise here was finding a ghost pipefish just on top of the front cockpit.
The forward cockpit
This was to me an excellent dive and great to see a whole aircraft underwater although the engine was missing as it must have broken off during impact and possibly the fuselage drifted slightly away before sinking whilst the engine would have gone straight down.
Eagle-eyed Kerstin spotted a ghost pipe fish just above the cockpit
Our bottom time on the Skyraider was 26 min with a total run time of 52 min. The dive on the Tabby (25 min bottom time / run time 56 min) had been done using 15L Steel tanks at 200 bar, and AL100 for the Skyraider, again at 200 bar. Personally I’d repeat the Tabby dive using double AL80s with a light trimix (21/30). EAN32 is perfect for the Skyraider, and of course a EAN50 deco gas for both dives.
We had a few drinks with Andy after the dives and picked his brains regarding a better eating place as the choice at Johan’s although looking good on paper was not always available. We had dinner at Blue Rock that night and in fact on Monday night too.
The flight from Dubai was rather uneventful, and I managed fours sleep out of the eight-hour flight. Arrival at Manila in Terminal 3 was a new experience as my previous six trips had been at Terminal 1. The whole process took less than 30 mins from disembarking to meeting the pick-up driver for the Holiday Inn.
We overnighted in Manila, Holiday Inn, Makati, which is attached to Glorietta Mall, and this gave us an opportunity to pick up some other items such as mosquito repellant, mouthwash, etc. We departed at 0800 for Subic Bay the next morning, arriving around 1230, traffic was stop / start for around 75% of the journey. Our driver Edgar was very cheerful and kept us entertained.
The staff at Johan’s are very friendly, however the room I had booked was not particularly to my liking so we moved to a much larger room that had space for me to work on my camera, as there is no camera room at this dive center.
Pretty soon we had organized our first dive for late afternoon on Lighthouse Reef, just the two of us with a guide Eljon. The boat departed around 15:30, so we had lunch and organized our gear etc.
The dive was quite pleasant on a reef that had seen better days I am sure, no big fish of course, and a rather disappointing nudibranch count, although it was great to be back in a 3mm wetsuit and warm water (28C).
After we returned I had a chat with Johan regarding our planned dives in particular the A2 Savage, and if Andy Davies had been in touch as I was having issues trying to contact Andy by phone.
The water was rather choppy when we had returned from the dive and the forecast was not too great for the next few days. Given that the Savage and the F4 Phantom are just outside Subic Bay, this meant that unless it was flat calm we would not be diving these two wrecks.
Later that evening Andy pitched up and we had a discussion regarding the dive plans for Sunday, which was to be the Tabby (45m) and the Skyraider (35m). Both dives would be deco dives using a 50% deco mix. The weird thing that neither Kerstin nor I could understand was the 10:00 am departure time especially as we noticed that the sea was calming down later on.
Sunday morning 0700, it was flat calm. We arranged our cameras, I changed over to wide angle, sorted out our gases etc., and the guys transferred everything to a larger boat different from what we used the day before.
It was good to note that all tanks must be analysed and properly labelled by each diver, I had actually brought my own O2 analyser with me, as in the past in the Philippines I have been offered a tank allegedly containing EAN32 and no analyser to check the contents.
Although this boat was larger and had a cabin, it was anything but stable, and the “captain” had to steer it like he had had a bottle rum for breakfast, it was almost impossible to keep it on an even keel, rather bizarre, and not for those who don’t have sea legs.
First dive was on the Tabby, I had some slight issues with my ears, not unusual, however they soon clicked and we descended down to 45M with a decent view of the tail of the plane from 35M. visibility was a reasonable 10M.
The Tabby, a Japanese version of the Douglas DC3 built under licence pre-WWII by Showa, is upside down with both engines ripped off, one of which is nearby. We had a planned 25 min bottom time and a total 56 min run time (check) using a lean nitrox mix (25%) with a 15L steel tank plus our deco gas in an S40.
Landing Gear port side (the plane is upside down)
The cockpit has broken off and twisted to one side, you can make out one of the control columns
Port side Cargo door
We had a quick tour around and also ventured out to where the remains of one of the engines was still resting, returned to the shot line and ascended.
Surface conditions were choppier now, and all the more I couldn’t understand why we did not leave earlier. After changing the tanks for the second dive and a 90min surface interval we did our second splash, my ears were in synch and we descended quickly onto the best placed shot line ever right next to the outer starboard 20mm cannon.
The Skyraider is sitting upright and is a special version that carried a four-man crew. (AD-4 version). Visibility was not as good as on the Tabby but still reasonable to see the whole aircraft. The big surprise here was finding a ghost pipefish just on top of the front cockpit.
The forward cockpit
This was to me an excellent dive and great to see a whole aircraft underwater although the engine was missing as it must have broken off during impact and possibly the fuselage drifted slightly away before sinking whilst the engine would have gone straight down.
Eagle-eyed Kerstin spotted a ghost pipe fish just above the cockpit
Our bottom time on the Skyraider was 26 min with a total run time of 52 min. The dive on the Tabby (25 min bottom time / run time 56 min) had been done using 15L Steel tanks at 200 bar, and AL100 for the Skyraider, again at 200 bar. Personally I’d repeat the Tabby dive using double AL80s with a light trimix (21/30). EAN32 is perfect for the Skyraider, and of course a EAN50 deco gas for both dives.
We had a few drinks with Andy after the dives and picked his brains regarding a better eating place as the choice at Johan’s although looking good on paper was not always available. We had dinner at Blue Rock that night and in fact on Monday night too.
