Coron

The boat ties up, you climb steps over the ridge and come down the far side to the lake. Fresh and salt water mix, so you float easily and the bottom stays visible, and life jackets have to stay on. Before nine in the morning only a few boats are in.

A rock wall divides the two, crossed by ladder at high tide and by swimming under it at low. In the inner lagoon the cold water sits below the warm, so dropping your legs down finds the line between them.

Divers come here for the temperature. The water separates into layers by depth and going down the reading jumps past thirty degrees, with the visibility smearing at that boundary. There is almost no fish life, so the draw is the rock and that heat.

Ships sunk by an American air raid in September 1944 lie where they went down. The shallow ones sit in about ten metres and their outlines show even on a snorkel, the deep ones lie past forty and need certification, and going inside takes a dedicated guide.

Ninety minutes out by boat, with sand fine and shallow enough that a long wade stays knee deep. A path across the island reaches a second beach that nobody uses, and with no electricity the boats leave before dark.

The water is saline because it is seawater coming up heated. At close to forty degrees the daytime is hard going and most people come after dark, and the mangrove around it brings mosquitoes. Fifteen minutes from town by tricycle.

More than seven hundred steps go up the hill behind town to a large cross at the top. It takes thirty or forty minutes with no shade, so most people start an hour before sunset, and from up there the bay and the islands come in together.

Ten minutes out from town, a cluster of seven small islands. The coral sits shallow enough that a snorkel shows the fish, and on days with current the crew ask you to hold the line beside the boat. The water is clearer in the morning.

Over two hours out by boat, which takes a whole day. A cave sits under the black limestone cliff with a wreck lying shallow inside it, and with few visitors the beach has nothing on it. On days with swell the boats do not run.

Animals brought from Kenya in 1976 were released on an island north of Busuanga, and the giraffe and zebra still live wild there. You ride a truck round and the giraffe come to the side for leaves held out, and at three hours each way it starts at dawn.

From 1906 this island was a colony for people with leprosy, and the Culion Museum keeps the old sanatorium's records and photographs. The hilltop church stands on a Spanish-era fort and overlooks the sea. Some take the boat from Coron town and stay overnight.

A pocket of sand under the limestone cliffs of Coron Island where tour boats moor for lunch. Huts give shade and the water just offshore is clear for a post-meal snorkel. Many itineraries pair it with Kayangan Lake.

A small island whose tip grows a long sandbar at low tide, letting you walk well out into the sea. Southern island-hopping tours from Coron visit it with Malcapuya. When the water comes back in, the bar vanishes and only the island remains.

A beach on a small island close to Coron town, where mangroves meet shallow water. The name stands for Coron Youth Club. Island tours often make it their first stop.

A snorkelling site where hard coral spreads across shallow water, beside a Japanese gunboat wreck lying close to the surface. At low tide the stern of the wreck sits near enough to the top to see without diving.