Coron Island Tour

We tour Coron Island with the Bangka. Coron is just a huge rock from the outside, but there are hidden entrances to places that are fighting hard to be the understudy for “The Beach”. The first stop is a lake that can be reached via a short climb between the rocks. Asians splash around with life jackets. Visibility in the Mondsee is easily 20 metres.

Uli joins us from her last dive. Lunch on a small beach directly under the rock face. Snorkelling at Twin Peaks Reef, thousands of fish in good visibility in the midday sun. Twin Lagoon, a hidden entrance from the sea, then dive through a tunnel into the second lagoon. Layers of water shimmer on top of each other, the rock faces rise 300 metres vertically.

I slowly dived a bit stupidly. At the last stop in front of Cyc Island, I hit rock bottom. The engine did the same again. We have now travelled to Bangka four times within a week. Not a single trip went off without engine damage. This one even takes quite a long time, a new battery comes from the neighbouring boat. The wind is quite strong, heavy spray flies over the deck as we drive home at sunset.

Between Coron Island and Cyc / Dimanled, the wind seems to pick up quite well through the nozzle in an easterly direction. Problem: The only possible launch site is Dimanled Island, about 30 minutes bangka from Coron. You definitely need the bangka as safety for the whole day. That was our week on Coron. Beautiful, but no kiting.

Was? No! Just like North Luzon, Coron just won’t let us move on. In the evening we receive a text message from Superferry: “Due to technical problems the ferry on November 26th is cancelled”. Fuck! This time we’re not just staying 20 hours longer than on the last trip with Superferry from Manila to Coron. The next Superferry won’t arrive for another week – if it does.

There is still the option of a cargo ship, which nobody knows if and when it will sail. Maybe on Sunday. We definitely don’t want to take the Bangka