Subic Bay

Diving here runs on short hops. More than ten full-time operators work out of the Freeport Zone waterfront and the Barrio Barretto strip, and unlike Coron, where wrecks are hours away, most Subic sites are about 15 minutes by boat from the centres, so two or three wreck dives before mid-afternoon is routine. Camayan, on the far side of the Freeport, runs reef and night dives straight off its beach. Foreign nationals pay a small SBMA gate fee to enter the zone by road, night dives need prior coordination with the SBMA, and the USS New York needs advance Harbor Patrol clearance because it sits in an active shipping lane.

The bay is protected and rarely rough, with mild current on most sites, but it is bay water: visibility runs 5–30 m depending on site and season, worst near the river outflows and best on the outer wrecks from February to May. The hulls carry the life. Schooling sweetlips pack wreck interiors, sometimes in the hundreds, groupers exceeding a meter hold territorial sections, bluespotted stingrays rest on the sand between structures, and coconut octopus occupy the crevices. San Quentin alone has over 20 recorded nudibranch species under a growth of soft corals, sponges and crinoids.

It suits wreck divers of every grade. Open Water divers get the El Capitan's cargo holds at 4–22 m; Advanced divers get the USS New York and the LST with its barracuda and jack schools; trimix divers get the Kyo Maru (69 m), Banshu Maru (54 m) and the largely intact AJ-2 Savage bomber at 72 m, with PSAI and TecRec technical training run locally. The Oryoku Maru, a war grave where hundreds of Allied prisoners died, is listed by some operators and described as permanently closed by another source — ask before planning on it. Divers after clear water, reef colour or reliable big animals will find the bay limited; sharks and large pelagics are uncommon inside it.