Scuba Diving - LST Wreck in Subic Bay, Philippines

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Scuba Diving - LST Wreck in Subic Bay, Philippines

I finally got the opportunity to scuba dive in the Philippines and the experience was mixed. The first site I dove was LST-959. We began the dive by going down to a depth of roughly 80 feet and proceeded to swim to the aft of the wreck. We then swam into a large opening at the back and went forward to the bow. It was pretty dark inside so I didn't really see much. Having a flashlight would have been really helpful in exploring the inside. Neverthless, it was fun to swim through the wreck. After swimming through, we have about 20-30 minutes to swim around the wreck. I stayed along the topside because there were some small lionfish and parrotfish swimming around. Visibility was around 35-40 feet...not too bad considering the wreck is located in a busy industrial port.

At one point someone in my dive group was pointing to a certain spot of the wreck. I swam closer to where they were pointing but didn't see anything. This diver swam up and grabbed what looked like a stick and all of a sudden a manta ray swam out from beneath some silt. I was very startled at fist because I totally didn't expect to see anything. A little further on I saw another manta rays tail sticking out. Another driver tried to get it to swim out from underneath the silt that covered it's body but this manta ray was pretty lazy and didn't seem to want to move very much. haha Both of these manta ray were extremly well hidden and if nobody had pointed them out, I would have passed over them without thinking twice.

Some information on LSTs and the LST I dove in Subic Bay from http://www.subicbaydive.com/sites/lst.html:
The tank landing ship (LST, for "Landing Ship, Tank") was created during World War II to support amphibious operations by carrying significant quantities of vehicles, cargo, and troops directly onto an unimproved shore. More than a thousand of these ships were laid down in the United States during WWII. The WWII versions of the LST were of two basic types. The earlier models were called type LST-1 and the later ones were type 511. After the war most of the LST’s sailed back to the US where they were but into an auxiliary fleet or scraped. Many of the LST were sold for scrape or sunk while still in the pacific. Over 50 were sold for scrape or for commercial use at Subic. As many as 10 may have been used as targets or just sunken at Subic. It is impossible to say which ships went where at Subic, once a ship was stricken from the roles it was no longer tracked by hull number. She may be LST-959. During World War II, LST-959 was assigned to the Asiatic-Pacific theater and participated in the assault and occupation of Okinawa Gunto in June 1945. Following the war, she performed occupation duty in the Far East and saw service in China until mid-May 1946. She was decommissioned on 13 June 1946 and struck from the Navy list on 3 July that same year.On 10 June 1948, the ship was stripped and destroyed at Subic Bay, Philippines.

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Photos

LST
From http://www.statiknet.de/subic/bry566.jpg

Bow
From http://www.statiknet.de/subic/bry566.jpg

Comments

[Scuba Diving Philippines]

http://www.malapascua.net/
The wreck is so fantastic. I haven't been diving in a wreck but i think it's a great experience.