Caves in Coron ( Busuanga, North Palawan)

 

Cathedral Cave

Cathedral Cave

Located near the southern tip of Coron Island and in front of an unbelievably dramatic backdrop of some of the steepest cliffs you might ever see is the Cathedral Cave. Credits here go Gunter Bernert, the owner of one of the Coron dive shops and a true pioneer in the area - for finding it.

Not much more than a hole in the ocean floor leads into this beautiful cavern.

After a few meters swim through the 10m deep entrance tunnel you see daylight again shimmering from the crystal clear water from above. After another 20m swim you will see a submerged tree, if you choose to ascend there you can see the source
of the light, which is a big hole on the top of the cave. There are fantastic formations all around and it is a great spot to take some unforgettable group pictures! Descend again and explore the rest of the big cavern, but please don’t enter the smaller second chamber behind the first one, unless you have received proper technical overhead environment training and are appropriately equipped! It is only a narrow passage that leads there and the bottom composition is very fine sand, so if you are in there and silt it up, you will probably not find your way back out anymore! You can easily spend the entire duration of the dive inside the cavern and not get bored, but you can also end the dive at the drop off in front of the cave entrance or just do a second dive there. It is a small reef wall, but reaches 30m and features some nice corals and an amazing variety of reef fish.

 

 

Colocoto Rocks and Cave

A few barren rocks in the open ocean, somewhere between Apo Reef and Coron, is all you can see on the surface. There is a nice little reef wall extending between the two rocks, but the main reason why we go here is the deep shaft that goes down to 60m. A small crack in the ocean floor at about 5m depths is all you can see from the top. Frank Doyle, the former owner of Rags II, found this site by accident, so don’t bother searching for it, you would need a long time to find it.

This dive is not for the faint hearted and should only be attempted by divers with thorough overhead environment experience. The tricky part is the entrance and exit. It can only be passed one by one in a vertical position. Once inside, the cave opens up and can be dived comfortably by three 		 

people at the same time. The most interesting part is probably between the 30m and 40m range where you can see beautiful formations, which means the cave used to be dry one day! How these formations got to that depth intact and why, we have no idea, but would appreciate any scientific clues anyone could give to us.

The shaft then goes on all the way down to 60m and narrows out there, so if you want to see the very end - choose helium (no problem on Rags II). Planning decompression is a not so easy because the stops between 12m and 6m are in the narrow entrance part, so better keep your bottom time fairly short.

Fortunately the bottom composition is mostly rock, so no risk of a silt out.

You can deco out on the 6m stop on the reef or if you just had a quick look inside and didn’t go very deep simply enjoy the rest of your bottom time on the reef.

This site is very exposed and can only be dived in good weather. A nice combination is possible, to make it a perfect day of diving, with the wreck of the Kyokuzan Maru on the northern side of Busuanga Island - Coron. (see the wreck diving links for more).

 

 

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