Nanshin Maru (Black Island Wreck) is a boat accessible salt water dive site, located in Basuanga, Coron, Philippines. The maximum depth is 101-110ft/31-34m. The average visibility is 101-110ft/31-34m. This dive site provides bathrooms and airfills. Training platforms are available.
This dive-site is called "Nanshin Maru” Wreck, which imply a Japanese origin of this sunken ship. In fact, that is not true. Though the origin is still unclear, it is for sure not one of the Japanese ships that belonged to the fleet attacked by US-Aircraft in Sept. 24, 1944.
Most likely it is an American vessel (coastal-oiler) sunk sometime after WW II in a typhoon. The location of the wreck is pretty close to the fabulous beach of Black Island, one of the most mysterious and beautiful islands in this area; it looks like a perfect pirate-island.
The over-length of the vessel is around 45m and she is resting in a upright position, angled to port, on a sandy slope, so the bow is the deepest part in 34m, the stern is in around 20m. While already close to the open sea of the South-China–Sea, the visibility there is most of the time quite pleasant with around 15-20m, usually no current. Because of the size there are not a lot of options to penetrate the wreck, only the engine-room, some parts of the bridge and the empty cargo – but the spaces there are pretty narrow and maybe good for one diver only. Fish life is quite pleasant with a lot of interesting small stuff, big sized Emperors, batfish, lionfish, a lot of angel fishes and anemone-fishes, sometimes sea snakes and with good luck you can encounter some pelagic, like sharks or bigger rays.
Because of the quite remote location, calling for a bangka-ride of 2 ½ - 3 hours, this dive-site is very seldom operated from Coron-Town.