Friday 20 March Diving Coron

From Coron town we navigated a cheeky short cut through the islands to Sangat where we had co-ordinates for an anchor spot close to the wreck of a tug boat. In the calm conditions and tucked under a 200 foot cliff we dropped the hook in 25m and had a short dinghy ride to the wreck which rests upright on a slope. The bow is at 4m and the stern at 20m. As a tug boat it's not big and swimming slowly we seen it all in just over half an hour. Then it was back to Jackster, hang up the kit and move to a shallower spot at the top of the island for our overnight.

Next day we motored three miles to a spot on the other side of the island to dive a bigger wreck, the Olympia. This time there was a strong mooring ball we could use for Jackster and 200m away there was a dive boat tied to the buoy on the dive site. The captain encouraged us to tie our dinghy to his boat while we dived. His guests were on their way up but were staying there for their lunch stop. As we were descending down the shot line we waved at the other divers who were gathering to come up.

on mooring west Sangat

The Olympia is a much larger wreck with more holds to investigate and more coral growth and fishes. What is nice is it sits upright with a level deck at the 20m level. We descended on the stern and swam to the bow and back. David spotted two large crocodile fish. There were some nice nudibranchs and more of the boat structure to explore.

It was when we thought we'd finished our dive that the most amazing thing happened. We'd come up the superstructure to a depth of 10m where the rope to the mooring ball is tied when David indicated for me to look behind. The look on his face suggested something of interest. Perhaps a turtle or a white tip shark. It was a shark – a 10m whale shark swimming towards us. He was accompanied by more than a dozen remoras, pilot fish around his mouth and a giant dog tooth tuna as out rider. First time he swam passed his fin was 5m from us, then he circled and came back five times almost as if to get a better look at the strange creatures in his territory. On the last two turns he was so close we were able to extend a hand and touch the tip of his fin. We were struck by how hard it felt.

whale shark and dog tooth tuna

David and I have been lucky to see whale sharks before, many full size adults in Galapagos and juveniles in Red Sea and Maldives but never have we had such an intimate encounter with these gentle giants. A very, very special moment.