Getting Wrecked at Subic Bay

Geared Up and waiting for our departure time...

GETTING WRECKED AT SUBIC NAVAL BASE

One of the Philippine's destinations Ive overlooked over and over again as I was growing up diving the Philippines was subic naval base.  It took me over 2 decades to finally suit up and go diving at one of the Philippine's premier wreck destinations.

I didnt expect much as i had spent alot of time in subic in my younger days racing cars and riding jetskis.  The water is murky and grey; not exactly the kind of place you'd want to go dive in.  But saying all that; it is this murky-ness that gives the perfect back drops for these meuseums of ww2.

Boardwalk Dive Center on a Regular Busy Day

It all started when a group of friends from hongkong asked me to arrange a Chinese New Year Trip for them in 2012.  This would not have been a problem on a regular day but these guys believing that i could achieve the impossible asked me to plan a trip for them 3 weeks before CNY; which only happens to be the one week out of the year that almost all of hongkong and China go travel to make the most of their Week Long holiday.  Flights to MNL or even CEB were already priced sky high and so for this trip Id have to dig deeper than I ever did before.

Subic Dive Sites....

Looking at the booking sheet of cebu pacific there was one destination with a direct flight from HKG that was dirt cheap... CRK... So the 5 of us set out for subic bay on chinese new year and by chance we were joined by 2 more people from Malaysia who also found themselves with only subic as a possible destination.

Being only an hour from Subic Naval Base the realization would lead to a great week with good friends.  So I got on the horn to one of my friends in diving that I havent seen, since I left Palau...  He just happened to own Subic's #1 Tech and Wreck Dive Center... Board Walk Divers... If you wanted to learn how to do it Right... Mr George AngDyPay could Teach it right.

The No Legged Bird Crew...

The shop is not much, its not Big and Swanky like most shops around the world... That Being said it is well equipped with everything a Technical; let alone a recreational diver would need.  Nitrox Mixes are always spot on! Mind you they are mixing manually the old fashioned way!  No Continuos blend systems or Membranes here! And the staff... specially the dive staff is trained extremely well for the conditions that they are diving; believe me they be some hairy conditions.  I personally feel that the type of diving these guys do on a daily basis has a higher danger level than most other types of diving in the Philippines.  And I must say, they do it really well...

The Boat at anchor

Subic as a whole has 11 Wrecks in all... There are some coral gardens around but we were here for the wrecks and thats what we would do.  There also was a little issue we still had to fix, and that was that in my group we had two members with less than perfect buoyancy  and if we were to achieve our  goal of doing all the wrecks in Subic (incl USS New York) that needed to be addressed.   With poor vis to begin with; poor buoyancy could easily have gotten us into a lot of trouble specially in an overhead environment.

Allen... Perfect Trim...

So off we went and we started with the easy dives first.  The first Day saw us diving the Barges, The Coral Garden and another reef by Grande Island.  No overheads on this day, but bouyancy coaching was already ongoing.  The first day though the whole group was treated to a real surprise, one that i dont think we'll ever see again through our diving lives.  As we came up from our last dive, we actually witnessed an American Submarine Surface not far from our dive site.  And boy what a treat that was; the behemoth was truly a site to see.  

The CNY Dive Crew... 2012

Straddling the guns...

The biggest advantage of subic is that evenings are anything but boring.  With all the Malls restaurants and bars there was so much for us to do.   Each evening we explored subic from the restaurants to the bars and definitely more.  So the days went by and we did each wreck with the difficulty of the next wreck higher than the last.  With each Dive on each you cant help but feel like you are walking through a piece of history.  

Subic's wrecks for some reason felt different to me; they seemed to be alot more eerie than the wrecks in Sipalay, Coron and Micronesia.

Jo Tang in the USS NY

It may have been because of the murky water, or maybe the fact that these wrecks actually reminded me of how wrecks are portrayed in the movies;  Dark and Eerie! remnants of a time of war that all who lived through it would want to forget.  The "Fish are Friends" Scene In Finding NEMO with Bruce the shark comes to mind.

That being said, the wrecks in Subic are in better physical shape than those in Coron and Sipalay.  Coron's wrecks thanks to the bays rich waters are more over grown with coral, sponges and marine life, but being a Naval Base Subic's wrecks were protected from would be salvage operations.   So where alot of the Coron wrecks have been salvaged missing alot of their main parts; the one's here offer alot more in terms of a complete super structure.  That plus a wide array of macro critters and big schools of fish make subic a truly amazing experience. 

I grew up in these waters, Jet Skiing at the very spots we were descending into and part of me never once before thought of diving here.  Getting the chance to finally dive here this trip reminded me that there's still so much more to see of what lies beneath.  Yes all over the world but specially in our own country.  That being said the only limit is our imaginations.

The Dive Group... plus James and Chien

Like all trips... this one came to an end... and to finish with a bang we did the USS new york.  We did not enter her deep holds; and inner bowels but we did penetrate deep enough to leave the sunlight behind us and out of sight.  Though it was not my first wreck penetration something about the USS NY was special... Now I just need to find time to go back.
If you are into wrecks or WW2 history for that matter... I highly suggest a trip to Subic Bay get yourself wrecked... And Maybe just a little tipsy in the process...

Boardwalk Dive Center

Coz as far as wrecks go... Subic makes for a pretty good experience....  Which reminds me...  

Its time to get a hold of George for that  TDI certification for sure. . .

These are the moments I dive for...  They dont happen often... thank you cat
for getting it on film...

Thanks to Allen Chiu and Cathy Au for the pictures.
Looking forward to seeing you again soon.
Until then... Keep on diving....

For more information you can check out boardwalk dive centers website at:

www.boardwalkdivecentre.com

or email me:

m.santos@bluewaterexpeditions.net