Reflections on the Philippines Capsizing. Carrying Four Divers to the Depths

In the early hours of April 30, at the remote Tubbataha Reef in the Philippines, the liveaboard MY Dream Keeper, with 32 people on board, capsized and sank. It carried 15 crew, 5 dive guides, and 12 Chinese passengers. The liveaboard's owner, a female divemaster, and two guests are believed to have gone down with the boat. The survivors were picked up by the MY Discovery Palawan, which was nearby. (Read a description of the capsizing here in our May issue.)

Gary Kulisek, a Canadian expedition organizer who was based in Puerta Galera and formerly associated with Truk Lagoon expeditions and the MV FeBrina in Papua New Guinea, told Undercurrent's senior editor, John Bantin: "Why is anyone surprised [about what happened] with Dream Keeper? There are 10 to 20 such [expletive] in the Philippines. They take a scrapped Japanese ferry hull, then stack a ton of superstructure on it. They only care about how many passengers they get on. These are 'cheap Charlie' trips, so to make them work, they need to overload. The captains/officers (I hate to call them this) are worthless/uneducated with certifications issued in a cornflakes box. Look at the shipping history of the Philippines - only the Congo River has a worse record. Any western certified builder/master runs for cover. During my 20 years in this place, it [appeared to] only get worse."

An owner of another vessel that visits Tubbataha, 80 miles from the nearest island, Palawan, who wishes to remain anonymous, told Bantin: "Most of these boats have oxygen cylinders, mixing gases, and cook with propane. They have wooden superstructures or even timber hulls - perfect ingredients for a fire. No vessel classification society in the world would pass such a vessel after the first look."

He says, "At every dive show [including DEMA], I make a PowerPoint presentation to charter companies. One section of my presentation is on IACS class and safety, redundancy, etc. Not a single person has ever asked me a follow-up question about that. All questions are related to prices and commissions."

If you're interested in diving Tubbataha, book a boat through a dive travel agency like Reef and Rainforest, Island Dreams, or Dive Discovery. They'll only select safe boats. We expect to have a review later this year.