Mactan & Olango · Philippines · Wreck
MV San Juan Wreck
A ship at 50 m that a typhoon stood back upright
Area photo: ＤＡＶＩＤ · CC BY-SA 3.0
The M/V San Juan sank in the year 2000 and rests at 50 metres, deep enough that every dive on it carries a decompression obligation. The ship lay on its side until super typhoon Odette moved it upright. Triggerfish, jacks, surgeonfish and tuna hold in and around the hull, and wrasse come in close during the stops on the way up.
Also known as M/V San Juan.
Where it is and how deep
10.2343° N, 124.0043° EApproximate position — the dashed circle shows where the site lies; your operator's briefing has the mooring.
The dive
The wreck rests at 50 metres, and that number sets the shape of the dive before anything else does: a straight descent, a short working time on the hull, and a decompression ceiling to clear on the way back up. It is planned as a staged deep dive rather than as something added to a morning on the house reefs, and it is the deepest thing catalogued on this side of the Mactan coast.
The ship stands upright now. It settled on its side when it went down in 2000 and was pushed onto its keel by super typhoon Odette, so what teams find is a hull sitting square on the bottom. Fish life is in and around it — triggerfish, jacks, surgeonfish and tuna — and the decompression stops on the way up count as part of the dive, with wrasse coming in to look over the divers while they hang.
The wreck
- Vessel
- M/V San Juan
- Type
- Motor vessel
- Sunk
- 2000
- Cause
- Not published; no account of the sinking beyond its year has been found.
- Lies
- Upright at 50 m; it lay on its side until super typhoon Odette moved it onto its keel.
The M/V San Juan sank in the year 2000 and came to rest at 50 metres. It settled on its side and stayed that way until super typhoon Odette moved it into an upright position, which is how divers find it today. Beyond the year of the sinking and the storm that righted it, little has been published: no length and no cause of loss appears in the accounts of the site, and the position is given inconsistently — the catalogue page that describes it places the wreck near Liloan, well north of Mactan, while the coordinates published on that same page put it in the channel south of the island.
Marine life and season
- Trevally & jacks
- Tuna
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Good | Good | Prime | Prime | Prime | Fair | Fair | Fair | Fair | Fair | Fair | Fair |
Season follows Mactan & Olango: Mar–May, the hot dry season, is the usual window; the Jun–Nov rains cut visibility on the house reefs, and typhoon risk runs highest around Nov–Dec, as Typhoon Rai showed in December 2021.
Know before you go
- The hull sits at 50 m, so every dive here runs a decompression obligation and there is no direct ascent to the surface once the plan is under way.
Questions divers ask
How deep is the MV San Juan wreck?+
The wreck rests at 50 metres, which puts it beyond recreational limits and makes it a decompression dive for divers with technical training.
Why is the San Juan upright?+
It originally rested on its side. Super typhoon Odette moved it into an upright position, and it has been dived that way since.
Sources
- MV San Juan, wreck — Scubago
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