Palawan

Palawan's northern tip splits into two working grounds. Off El Nido, the forty-five islets of Bacuit Bay rise as sheer limestone towers around hidden lagoons reached only by tender or kayak. A forty-minute flight — or the best part of a day by sea — north, Coron Bay holds nine Japanese supply ships sunk in a single fifteen-minute strike in September 1944, among the finest wreck diving anywhere, while Busuanga's own coast runs on to a 1970s safari park where the descendants of an African translocation still roam free. Neither end has a marina: the whole ground runs on anchorage and agent, cleared through Puerto Princesa or Manila, and settled by the amihan, the dry Northeast monsoon that holds from November to May, ahead of the wetter habagat the rest of the year.

“Nine Japanese supply ships went down in Coron Bay in a single fifteen-minute raid — the wrecks never left.”

Signature anchorages

Two working grounds, a short flight or a day's passage apart — every stop here is a tender ride, not a berth.

• Corong-Corong Bay, El NidoThe working base: a long sand bay in about 10 metres, good holding for any LOA (length overall), a ten-minute tender or tricycle ride from El Nido town. Settled through the amihan; open to the southwest, so watch a habagat shift.
• Bacuit Bay's lagoons — Miniloc IslandBig, Small and Secret Lagoon cut into Miniloc's cliffs, entered by kayak or tender through gaps barely a boat-width wide. Anchor the yacht off Miniloc or Cadlao in open water and send the tenders in — there is no overnight anchorage inside the lagoons themselves.
• Matinloc & the Tapiutan StraitMatinloc runs eight kilometres along Bacuit Bay's western edge; the narrow strait between it and Tapiutan Island opens onto Secret Beach, reached by swimming through a gap in the cliff. Deep water close to the rock and patchy holding — a day-anchor, not an overnight one.
• Coron Bay's wreck fleetNine WWII wrecks scattered across open water between Busuanga, Culion and Coron Island, from the beginner-depth Lusong Gunboat, which breaks the surface, to the Irako lying upright at 45 metres. The principal wrecks carry a permanent dive buoy; anchor clear of them, on sand, in the surrounding bay.
• Coron Island — the sacred lakesKayangan Lake for its clarity, Barracuda Lake for its thermocline (a sudden shift in water temperature with depth), Twin Lagoon for the swim-through between fresh and salt water — all three on land the Tagbanwa hold as ancestral domain. No anchoring off the island without their advance permission; tender or kayak in from the channel.
• CalauitA 1970s safari park on Busuanga's northern tip, giraffe and zebra descended from an African translocation still grazing open grassland down to the shore. An open roadstead off the south coast, exposed to any northeasterly swell — a settled-weather, daylight-only stop.

The scene

Nine decades of history, one still-sacred lake, and the least likely wildlife park on any charter coast.

Table & stay ashore

The eco-resorts that opened this coast, and the one restaurant everyone in El Nido agrees on.

A week, sketched

Pair with

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