Diving Subic Bay

Getting to to Subic Bay from Manila is relatively easy, you can organise a vehicle from the airport or point of arrival, a number of private business' operate private vehicles supplied via the dive centre you choose, otherwise, a bus, jeepney and trike is your budget option. I prefer the local coach style bus option myself as I usually travel alone, I also like the cheapest option and then a short trike ride from the main road.



Whilst many options exist for diving and accommodation, my choice is Johan's Dive Resort on Baloy Beach, Olongapo City. Having stayed there a number of times, the establishment is reasonably compact and my only interest in Olongapo is diving - this suits me. You really wouldn't go to Olongapo for any other reason as Olongapo City is a dirty unfriendly place and best avoided.



The dive shop is located just to the side of the accommodation, the term resort is a little liberal, however, Johans is pretty good budget accommodation. Along side the dive shop is the restaurant and bar and just a step onto the beach.

The dive shop is a little tight for space but works pretty efficiently, the briefing area is central, the guides brief the dives at the shop and not out on the boat. 



The dive guides at Johans are excellent, they are local guys who possess exceptional dive skills with thousands of dives in the bay.



The guides wash the equipment up after dives, two of the rooms are in the dive shop whilst the rest are upstairs. The rooms in the shop are pretty noisy, but are you in Subic Bay to dive, these are very convenient.

  



The briefing board indicating a number the wrecks in the bay, the board flips with more wrecks on the other side, an F4 Phanton jet from the Vietnam era sits just outside the heads of he bay in 45 metres. I have dived Subic Bay a number of times but have still been unable to organise a dive on the F4. The plane is basically just an airframe now, having been stripped of all usable parts, this plane did not crash but was pushed overboard, presumably to clear deck space on an aircraft carrier as was the practice during that period. 



Heading out from Johans on Baloy Beach, the majority of the dive sites are a short boat ride across the bay.

 

The boats are fast, the banca style boats aren't used in Subic Bay and they don't usually return between dives. A 60 minute surface interval is easily handled on these boats, they will take the boats out for a single diver too, numbers are low and space is abundant. 

 



A number of the wrecks are well suited to decompression stop diving, a single stage is an optimal set-up for most but not all dives. There are plenty of opportunities to penetrate wrecks such as the New York armoured cruiser, the El Capitan, LCU, LST, Siam Maru and the Japanese patrol boat - wreck diving is what Subic Bay is all about. The older St Quintin (1898) is much shallower than many of the other wrecks and mostly broken up, it however makes a change form the many other wrecks in the area and well worth a look as a second dive, at 16 metres depth, the issue of decompression is not an issue and you have plenty of time to explore the broken up hull and nearby reef.