Palawan's WWII wreck diver capital — Kayangan Lake and Barracuda's eerie blue
Coron is a small island town in northern Palawan province, home to the world's most accessible collection of sunken WWII Japanese warships — 12 vessels from the September 1944 US Navy air raid that now host some of the most dramatic wreck diving on the planet. Above water, the Coron island karst formations shelter a series of natural lakes: Kayangan Lake (Philippines' clearest freshwater lake) and Barracuda Lake (a halocline at depth where warm salt water meets cool fresh water and visibility reaches extraordinary depths) are accessible by a local boat and a short hike. The surrounding Calami…
The Calamianes islands were inhabited by the Tagbanwa indigenous people, among the Philippines' oldest surviving indigenous groups, who remain the custodians of Coron Island's sacred lakes under indigenous land rights recognized by the Philippines government in 1998. The Spanish established nominal authority over the region in the 18th century but never fully displaced the Tagbanwa from their island stronghold. The 1944 Battle of Coron Bay — in which 23 US Navy aircraft sank a fleet of Japanese supply ships that had retreated here after the sinking of the Philippines Sea — created the wreck-d…