Diving in Palawan(Philippine) or Tioman(East of Malaysisa Pen.)

[sandwich]

HI all,

I am going to have 2 weeks holiday in coming Dec, and I may go to dive in Palawan. Did anyone go there before, and have any suggestion ?
- should I live onboard or stay in the hostel ?
- should I flight from Manila to El Nido ? how can I book the ticket ? and how much is it ? OR should I take the ferry from Manila ?

I had been Tioman Island (east of Malaysisa Pen.) few years before, and it is the most beautiful coral island I ever saw(compare with Great Barrier, Boroacy, Moalboal, Puerto Galeria, Sabah). Does anyone go Tioman recently and is it still good for diving now ? Can anyone mention that ?

Thx!!

 

[Peter Lim]

If you think she is good, you had not been diving elsewhere that are better.

 

[mleong]

Not recommended to dive in Tioman after October. It is monsoon season. Better you come after Febraury.

 

[erwin]

If you are going to Palawan on December it would be much better to go to the Coron area for the wrecks.

Tubattaha season starts in March so the liveaboard deal is not an option at the date you were mentioning. I hear there is some spectacular diving in the southern area however I have never been there so I would not be the one to make a judgement as to this area.

If you do decide to go to Coron, go by ferry as even the locals do not consider the plane to Coron as being an attractive alternative. There are a lot of dive operations in the area so you will have a lot of choices when you do decide to go diving.

Board and lodging are on the reasonable side so I guess you will have no problem with this either.

I hope that this has answered some of your questions and I wish you a happy sojourn to the Philippines come December.

 

[MacHeath]

I have done both Tioman and Coron in the last few months. Of the two I think Coron is better both in terms of wrecks (obviously) and life (but not by much).

We flew from Manila to Busuanga (the island which Coron is on) it took only about one hour. I believe the ferry takes 12 hours.

The two airlines I know of that do the service are SEAir and Asian Spirit. Both have web sites, and you need to email them to book tickets. Be aware though that they do cancel flights if there are not enough people on them. The planes have 15(ish) seats. Both airlines also go to El Nido I think, their schedules are on the websites.

There are actually now only 2 dive operators in Coron town, the others seemed to close because of lack of tourists.

I really enjoyed Coron, and Baraccuda lake ( I forget the local name) is the strangest place I have ever dived.

Enjoy

 

[sandwich]

Thx Peter Lim,mleong and erwin.

MacHeath, can you tell me more about Tioman ? I really miss this place, I visited her 7 yrs ago. But I still remeber its colourful coral which near the beach side, and the spectacular coral island boat trip. Are they still as good as before, or almost killed by the pollution ?

 

[MacHeath]

Hi Sandwich

I first went to Tioman about 5 years ago, and it has gone down hill a bit since then. I'm not sure if pollution is a problem, but over diving certainly is. There seems to be quite a bit of damage to the coral. The visibility can be good, but is often not. I have experienced 15m vis, right down to ~3m. There is quite good life, it is a marine park.

Don't get me wrong it is still a good dive location, but not as good as Coron/surrounds. I guess if you are going to go, then you shoud go before they extend the airport to take jumbos....

There are other dive sites nearby, Aur, 7 Skies/Kuantan (wrecks), Anambas (a bit further), so you could do these as well, but maybe not in December.

December is not the best time, as it is monsoon season in this part of the world then. The crossing is likely to be rough, and I'm not 100% sure that the dive operators even run then (some of the boats go up to Thailand).

Hope this helps

 

[geo]

Just came back from Tioman last weekend...

Err... All i can say is... It's swarming with life but ain't too good with the Viz... Viz there is like 3m-10m???

It's an interesting trip for me cos i started diving only in May and this is my 2nd dive trip... And i get to see lots of diff fishes (for ex. napolean wrasse & 1 metre long humphead parrotfish ), nudibranches, jellyfish, stingray, cuttlefish... etc...

So... hopefully u make the rite choice... though it's true the monsoon is coming already... best u go to other sites that's not affected by it

Cheers,
Geo

 

[travelem]

http://www.philippineshotelresort.com/airticketing/index.html
http://www.travelsmart.net/ph/flights/domestic/
Southeast Asian Airlines - SEAIR has flights from Manila to El Nido.
http://www.seair.de/s/indframe.html

Long distance ferry:
http://www.wgasuperferry.com/passage/rates_frame.htm

 

[mleong]

Was at Tioman this March. THe vis was better in the morning. But overall it is good. Most of the sites there are good spots.
Last trip was in June. IT was a good trip. Few weeks ago, a vessle was doing some construction and the anchor line damaged some coral reef there. Has not been there since and do not know exactly how bad was the damage.
I will be going back there again next march.


mleong