Sunken treasure

Medical Tribune September 2009 P18
David Brill

If Subic Bay seems unremarkable you may be looking in the wrong place. David Brill finds that attraction lies beneath the surface.

Looking out over Subic Bay, you could be forgiven for thinking you’d booked the wrong trip. Tankers float out at sea, cranes loom over the shoreline, and litter washes up at your feet. Far from the glorious beaches of Boracay or Palawan, Subic does not at first glance appear an obvious destination for visitors to the Philippines.

A look below the water, however, tells a different story. An entire fleet of shipwrecks sits silently at the bottom of the sea, oblivious to the trivial goings-on at the surface. Anemones sprout on deck, while lionfish lurk in twisted metal crannies below. Barracudas swim down gun turrets, emerging in ghostly loading chambers long disused and overgrown with rust. Subic is a sunken goldmine – entry only for those with a diving license.

Back on land, Subic Bay was home to a US naval base until forces withdrew in 1992. The area of the base remains enclosed as the Subic Bay Freeport Zone – the shipyards making way for hotels, restaurants and casinos. International access is via Clark airport, some 2 hours drive southeast of Subic, or from Manila, a further 3 or so hours south of Clark, depending on traffic.

Some of Subic’s shipwrecks date back to the Spanish-American war of 1898, but the majority sank during the years of World War II. Twenty-five ships from Japan alone are claimed to have gone down during the war but with salvage operations undertaken in the 1950s, no one is quite sure how many wrecks remain in the bay. Best guesses suggest that there are some 20 wrecks in still waters – 10 or so of which are suitable for recreational diving.

The main attraction at Subic Bay is the USS New York. Launched in 1891, she played a key role in the Spanish-American war before returning to action in World War I as the USS Saratoga. She was eventually decommissioned in the Philippines in the 1930s and remained moored at Subic Bay until 1941, when she was deliberately scuttled by retreating US forces to prevent her from falling into the hands of the Japanese.

The navy’s loss proved to be scuba divers’ gain, as the 120-meter-long USS New York came to rest on its side with its topmost point just 17 meters from the surface. This depth leaves the top of the wreck accessible for novice divers, with the inside and lower decks offering a variety of options for those seeking more challenging, technical dives. The engine rooms lie at the very bottom of the ship and remain largely unexplored.

Visibility was mediocre during a trip in late July but the wreck is eerily impressive nonetheless. Its sheer, hulking size is enough to leave you feeling insignificant by comparison, while the sight of its three giant gun barrels emerging ominously from the gloom offers another reminder of the vast power the ship once wielded. A variety of wildlife circulates the site: dive instructors list barracuda, rays, octopi, lobsters and spotted sweetlips among the wreck’s inhabitants, although not all were seen on our trip.

Other wrecks at Subic Bay include El Capitan, a shallow site which is easily accessible for all comers. Even fairly novice divers can swim through the hold, and poke their head up into a pocket of trapped, ancient air (attempting to breathe it is strongly not advised). Also of note is the infamous Oryoku Maru – a Japanese cruise liner used for transportation of prisoners of war from Manila to Japan. Later dubbed ‘The Hell Ship’ for the nightmarish conditions in which prisoners were kept, she was bombed and sunk at Subic by US navy planes in 1944. Several other vessels are accessible – including a largely intact Japanese patrol boat – along with various sites of debris, scattered metal, and even a few coral reefs.

Beyond the diving, a few activities are available at Subic, including horse riding, watersports, go-karting and, of course, gambling. Much of the area, however, feels run-down and seedy, and considerable regeneration will likely be needed if tourists are to come in large numbers. In the meantime, however, Subic offers an enjoyable and convenient weekend for divers, especially given the proximity of the wrecks to the shore and the relative ease of transport from abroad. Don’t be fooled by the cranes and tankers – Subic Bay is to be judged on what lies below.

Darwin’s legacy in the balance: The splendor of the Galapagos Islands

Medical Tribune March 2009 P18
David Brill

The Galapagos Islands are treasured by naturalists the world over for their unrivalled diversity of wildlife and geology. David Brill visits the islands, and reports on the difficult challenges they face.

February 12th saw the world celebrate the life of one of its great scientific heroes. Two hundred years on from the birth of Charles Darwin, and 150 from the publication of his much-celebrated On the Origin of the Species, his theories of natural selection continue to this day to shape our understanding of the world around us and our appreciation of the history of mankind.

The Galapagos Islands, located around 1,000 km to the west of mainland Ecuador, played an integral role in the development of Darwin’s theories. He visited the archipelago in 1835 aboard the HMS Beagle, on its way back to England from a 3-year voyage around the coastlines of South America. An enthusiastic naturalist with a seemingly limitless capacity for taking notes and collecting specimens, it was here that he acquired the data which were to famously mould his thinking on evolution. The different sub-species of finch, each one perfectly adapted to its niche on the respective islands, has become perhaps the best-cited example of his inspiration.

To visit the Galapagos Islands today is to grapple with a difficult ethical dilemma. The national park authorities depend on the income from tourism to enact the conservation projects that seek to preserve the islands’ unique ecosystems, yet it is the influx of tourists which hastens their very demise. The annual number of visitors rose from 68,856 in 2000 to 108,436 in 2004 – pairing a substantial rise in income with an equivalent threat from pollution and the introduction of non-native species. Andrew Marr, president of the Galapagos Conservation Trust (GCT), warned recently that development needs to be brought under control, and suggested that tourists be restricted to one visit per lifetime. Marr himself, a well known British journalist and commentator, has pledged never to return despite falling in love with the islands on a visit in 2002 and taking up the GCT presidency in 2006.

For those who do exercise their right to make this literal once-in-a-lifetime trip, it is easy to see why Marr feels so strongly about the preservation of the Galapagos Islands. The beauty and diversity are every bit as spectacular as promised, and can scarcely be captured in words or photographs. There can be few spots in the world where you can watch a mother hawk teaching her young to swoop for marine iguanas, which scurry for cover in the cracks of a scarred volcanic landscape. With sea lions sunbathing on bright white sand to your left, albatrosses circling a haunted-looking scrub of a forest to your right, and giant turtles peeking their heads out from the shining blue ocean ahead of you, the list of possible locations is surely shortened to one.

The Galapagos Islands sit on a tectonic conveyor belt above a submarine volcanic hotspot. As new cone-shaped islands rise up from the seabed, they begin to move slowly away from the lava source, becoming cool and inactive as they are carried east and eventually worn down by erosion. At a pace of 75 mm per year this is a slow process: Espaňola, the oldest of the 13 main islands, is estimated to be around 4 million years old while Fernandina is the youngest at under a million years and remains volcanically active to this day.

It is this diversity of geology that has given rise to the islands’ astonishing range of wildlife, fostering the evolution of several species which do not exist anywhere else in the world. While Fernandina sits barren and lifeless, its red rocks resembling a Martian landscape, Espaňola is green and verdant and contains many of the natives endemic to the Galapagos. In the middle sits Santa Cruz, the second largest of the islands and home to Puerto Ayora, the major population center of the islands. Santa Cruz is also the residence of Lonesome George – the world’s last surviving giant Pinta tortoise and the most famous citizen of the Galapagos (pictured). Despite countless attempts to encourage him to bear offspring he continues to live out his days as a bachelor at the Charles Darwin Research Station, apparently oblivious to the demise of his species and the iconic status he has gained among environmentalists.

There are signs that tourism in the Galapagos Islands is slowing in the current economic climate. Some of the cruise liners have received unusually high numbers of cancellations and are down-scaling their itineraries for this year. It remains to be seen how the islands will cope with this drop in the income which has become such a double-edged lifeline, and whether the unique beauty of the Galapagos will benefit or suffer from this downturn. As long as tourism can be appropriately managed and regulated, however, there is little doubt that the Galapagos Islands will remain one of the world’s greatest destinations – as inspiring to travelers today as they were to Darwin himself.