Barracuda Lake

Barracuda Lake is Coron Island's oddity: another brackish lake in a limestone bowl, but one where warm groundwater and seawater stack in layers, so a diver descending passes through a shimmering thermocline and the temperature climbs from the twenties into the thirties within a metre or two - a genuinely strange sensation, and the reason divers rate it among the most unusual sites in the country. Visibility is exceptional, the walls fall away in jagged rock formations and silt-covered ledges, and there is very little life beyond a few shrimp and, by reputation rather than reliable sighting, the barracuda that gave it the name. Getting in means a short scramble over sharp rock from the boat landing to a wooden platform. Non-divers can swim in it, and the layering is noticeable even at the surface on a calm day. As at Kayangan, the site is Tagbanua ancestral domain and their fees and rules apply.

Highlights

• The thermocline - the shimmering layer where the heat changes.
• The rock walls - formations dropping into clear water.
• The entry scramble - the sharp climb from the landing.
• The still surface - glass-flat water in the bowl.

When to go

November to May for calm crossings. Divers usually go early, before the snorkelling boats arrive.

What to expect

The rock at the entry is sharp - shoes matter. There is almost no marine life, so this is a site for the geology, not the fish. Fees are collected separately by the Tagbanua community.

Nearby

Kayangan Lake, Twin Lagoon and the wreck-dive sites of Coron Bay are all close.