Princess of the Orient Deep Wreck Trip July 2009

I have been working on putting a trip to the Philippines together but am yet to make it happen for one reason or another but if I can get enough interest I will try and get it happening again.

Sept 19th 1998. Tropical Storm Vicki was beating the northern Philippines with 45 mph (75 km/h) winds when The Princess of the Orient left Manila at 8 p.m. bound for Cebu, about a day's journey to the south. A storm warning prohibited ships of less than 500 tons from sailing, however this did not apply to the huge 13,734 ton ferry. Four hours later she was reported listing, a state from which she was unable to recover.

Survivors said the ship sank in less than an hour -- highly unusual for a ship of her size with no apparent damage. Although 29 years old the 200m long ferry was a sturdy vessel not even close to overloaded, the Princess should have handled the storm with ease. Authorities now suspect that cargo shifted leaving her vulnerable to the churning sea.

She has only been dived a handful of times and is lying on her Port side in 125 Meters of water and we plan to go back and visit her this July.

Considering the extreme depth of the wreck this trip is only open to suitably qualified and experienced divers. We will have full rebreather and OC support for this trip and there is also a chamber not too far away if needed. We will leave from Puerto Galera aboard the dive vessel and then be ferried back to the mainland each afternoon, eat and sleep ashore and travel back out to the boat the next morning to dive again.

The plan will be to conduct a number of dives over a 4 or 5 day period where the divers will be divided into 2 teams and then each team split into 2 groups. The first team will act as support for the second team which will dive the wreck and each small group will be guided by the 2 dive guides. The following day the teams will swap roles and the team which dived the wreck the previous day will now act as support for the wreck diving team.