Subic Bay Snorkeling & Diving Day Trip

Subic Bay is one of the Philippines' best-kept diving secrets. The deep, sheltered bay contains one of the highest concentrations of accessible WW2 wrecks in Asia — over 20 documented ships ranging from Spanish-American War era vessels to Japanese freighters sunk by US forces in 1944 — all within a protected bay where strong currents and fishing boats are absent. The result is clear water, well-preserved wrecks, and abundant marine life with minimal effort to access.

The tour visits two sites: the USS New York, an 1891 US Navy supply ship lying in 9-27 metres and now so encrusted with hard and soft corals that it barely resembles a ship at all — more a garden of enormous sea fans and barrel sponges with grouper and snapper patrolling every overhang. For snorkellers the upper structure is visible from the surface and the clarity allows full appreciation of the marine life without descending. The second stop is the El Capitan, a 140-metre Japanese freighter in 10-16 metres, its hull entirely transformed by 80 years of coral growth and home to a resident school of several hundred bigeye trevally that orbit the wreck in a continuous silver vortex.

Sea turtles are reliably encountered on both sites — they use the wrecks as cleaning stations and seem entirely indifferent to divers and snorkellers. The bay's protection from swell makes it suitable year-round, and the relative lack of tourist dive boats compared to destinations like Puerto Galera means you frequently have these extraordinary sites to yourself. Lunch is grilled on the boat between dives — fresh fish from the nearby Olongapo fish market, cooked over charcoal with garlic and calamansi while anchored above a 1940s shipwreck.