Coron's mainland island — blacktip reef sharks in the shallows, Japanese WWII wrecks, and Palawan's most dramatic lagoons
Busuanga is the large island that contains Coron town — the jumping-off point for the world-class Japanese WWII wreck dives of Coron Bay, where 12 Imperial Japanese supply ships sunk in a 1944 US Navy air strike lie in 10–40m of clear water. While Coron town is the dive hub and tourist centre, Busuanga island itself offers a quieter experience: the Calauit Safari Park (African animals transplanted to a Philippine island by Ferdinand Marcos) in the northwest, blacktip reef sharks patrolling the shallow bays around the island's coast, and a landscape of limestone hills, buffalo-grazed pastures,…
Busuanga's most unusual landmark is the Calauit Safari Park — a 3,700-hectare reserve created by Ferdinand Marcos in 1977 when he relocated 254 Tagbanua families from their ancestral lands on the island and replaced them with 104 African wildlife species (giraffes, zebras, bushbuck, waterbuck, topi) transplanted from Kenya as part of a conservation trade. The Tagbanua displacement remains a live land rights issue. The African animals have reproduced and the park now holds an established multi-generational herd. The WWII Japanese wrecks in Coron Bay — sunk by US Navy Task Force 38 on 24 Septem…