RestlessNatives.net NativeGuide to
PHILIPPINES
| map
from national geographic society |
nighttime lights from noaa |
Philippines Page 3: Subic Bay
George went to Subic Bay on a dive trip in March 2000.
The purpose of my trip to Subic Bay was to do some technical wreck diving. I got TDI-certified as an Advanced Wreck Diver, and also did a Nitrox course since we were diving on Nitrox most of the time. And I did my first couple of decompression dives. A fun trip.
We flew into Manila and took a long nighttime ride to Subic Bay packed into a small van, stopping once at a McDonald's in the middle of nowhere. Subic Bay, for those who don't know, was a US naval base for a long time but was recently abandoned by the US Navy and converted into a free trade zone by the Philippines. As I recall, the catalyst for the Navy's departure was the eruption of the local volcano (Pinatubo?). Subic Bay is in some ways like a little slice of American suburbia compared to the rest of the Philippines. Wide streets with curbs, steakhouses, that sort of thing.
I only did a total of 5 dives over three days of diving, missing one dive because I didn't feel well, but the dives averaged about 80 minutes each (longest was 100 minutes including deco time). So along with setting up gear, getting to and from the dive shop and the dive sites, etc, the diving kept us pretty well occupied, and I didn't see much of the area aside from the hotel, dive shop, and a couple of restaurants.
We wore what I think of as tech diving gear - harness, reel, double steel tanks, an extra long octopus hose, lights with big separate battery packs, etc. The whole kit ended up around 100 pounds. That's no problem underwater (as long as your buoyancy's ok), but it was a bit unwieldy to carry the hundred feet to the boat. The cool part of gear that heavy is that you can "moonwalk" on the bottom pretty realistically if you take your fins off.
The diving was fun, and just scary enough to keep me on my toes. There's nothing like being inside a dark or silted-out wreck 30 meters down to make you keep track of exactly where your regulators are. We did a bunch of exercises - laying line, sharing air, exiting "lights out", etc, but there was also enough time to appreciate the wrecks. They definitely have a different attraction from the typical reef diving that I usually do - impressive, eerie. Visibility was fairly poor, and that wasn't helped by the volcanic ash that covered the bottom and was very easily stirred up, meaning that the wrecks got silted up pretty quickly.
Though we also visited the wreck of freighter El Capitan, the star attraction in the area is the USS New York, a 350-foot(?) armored cruiser first used in the Spanish-American War and eventually scuttled in the harbor during the American retreat from Subic Bay in World War II (to hamper Japanese operations in the harbor). It lies on its side in about 30 meters of water. The deck guns are huge, the massive propeller is intact, and it is possible to penetrate through the whole length of the wreck in certain places. There are some great views from inside the wreck - shafts of light from portholes eerily lighting the corridors, and all that. You'll have to take my word for it, though, since my underwater camera broke while diving here (and visibility was crap anyway).
© 2000-2002 G. King / RestlessNatives.net. All rights reserved.
