It's funny how we tend to regard the Philippines as just one destination. To put things in context, I took some rough measurements off my wall map. The Philippines covers about 50% of the area of the Caribbean, with at least as much coastline, islands and reefs. Yet we tend to think of the Caribbean as 50 or more different destinations rather than just a single location.
When planning my trip the problem soon became one of deciding just which of all the wonderful diving opportunities I could fit into one trip. I would just have to settle for a representative sample. For a quiet out of the way place with pristine reefs I travelled to Apo island, the most prominent marine reserve in the Philippines. For a more mainstream location with equally good diving I selected Puerto Gallera, one of the better known dive destinations in the Philippines.
The Philippines has two areas of concentrated wreck diving, Coron Bay off the island of Batangas to the north of Palawan, and Subic Bay on the main island of Luzon, the location of an old US naval base with a mixture of American and Japanese wrecks. I had dived the Coron wrecks a few years ago, so this time round I elected to have a look at Subic Bay.
You can't go anywhere in the Philippines without noticing the ingenious and colourful forms of transport available.
It starts with the jeepney, a conversion of a jeep to a taxi or minibus, upholstered in red vinyl and covered in polished aluminium and mirrors. These began as conversions of US military jeeps, but are now built on larger Japanese truck chassis.
Jeepneys run fixed routes as a local bus service in towns and also longer distances between towns. Just flag one down from the roadside, climb on board, and pay the driver a few pesos. You can also hire a private jeepney as a taxi.
For shorter distances, a tricycle is a small motorbike with passenger side-car and sunshade above. They cost a little more than a jeepney but will go from door to door. Tricycles are often overloaded with entire families crammed onboard.
Once you get to the water, the traditional boat is the banca, a canoe style hull with twin bamboo outriggers. These range in size from one man fishing bancas with paddle power to double deck passenger ferries with diesel engines salvaged from trucks. They actually make quite good dive boats.