Deep Water Soloing in Coron

Do you have any idea how hard it is to search for local boatmen, tour guides, companies, etc. who knows where you can safely do deep water soloing in Palawan, Philippines? It took me months (!!) sifting through reddit, quora, travel sites, instagram feed, facebook posts, twitter tags! I reached out to posters who seemed to have an idea what I was talking about and I run into dead-ends most of the time. Its truly exhausting work! This is why as soon as I found one, confirmed it in person and did it, I decided I definitely should put this in my blog so those who are looking for it do not have to do the same exhausting research I had to do! For my rock climbing friends, I hope this helps you guys out!

Deep Water Soloing

According to wikipedia, Deep Water Soloing is “is a form of solo rock climbing that relies solely upon the presence of water at the base of a climb to protect against injury from falls from the generally high-difficulty routes“. Also known as ‘psycobloc’, it is basically climbing with just your shoes and chalk and jumping to a comfortable height down to the water.  Easier said than done!! If you are afraid of heights OR deep water (or both!), this is definitely one that you should NOT do.

Now all of these sound exciting and good but of course, as any sports, safety is paramount. A lot of these guidelines are pretty self explanatory but I would list them anyway.

• Never go alone. If you get into trouble, at least someone else is there to help you out of the water.
• Be sure you know how to swim. Remember that you have to swim back to the boat after the jump (duh) and you may have to weather the water currents.
• Be wary of the phenomenon known as Cold Water Shock, which is a real danger in water below 15°C.
• Land in water, feet first. I assume if you sign up to do DWS, you already know how to properly jump into the water.
• Scout the location – NOT ALL CLIFFS, ROCK OVERHANGS SAFE FOR CLIMBING ARE SAFE FOR JUMPING. Make sure there are no obstructions under the water. Check the tide times.
• Be prepared. Bring your first aid kit if you have it.

El Nido or Coron

El Nido

Now that we have covered the basics of DWS, let’s talk about the experience.  During my research of places in the Philippines for this sport, most of the links brought me to this video.

Deep Water Solo

I was so happy because that’s where I was headed and thought it would be easy to find guides to bring me to these rocks since I’m a local. NOPE. First of all, I have not encountered any adventure excursion, a guide OR a boatman who was familiar with the sport. I showed the video and everyone was like, “Oh I know that place! For a fee, I can show you that rock!”. Umn, no thanks! Be wary of these people because they are NOT climbers – which means they do not know whether that rock is climbable, the tide condition, the climb grade, etc. They literally only know the ROCK and will bring you there. That is a disaster waiting to happen.

Afterwards, I reached out to a blog post that showed pictures of DWS in El Nido. Unfortunately, it was taken 4 years ago and these are just tourists who rented a kayak and tried looking for rocks to DWS on their own. Still, I kept my hopes up that they know someone who could lead me to the places they climbed. They responded after a couple of days (im surprised they did actually!) and my fears were confirmed – the pictures were definitely in El Nido. What islands, they dont remember. How to get there other than kayak from where they were at the time, they cant say.  It was another dead end. In addition they said that the rocks in El Nido they climbed were not ideal – too sharp, , the water too shallow. Like me, they saw the video but does not know how to get to those rocks.

Since I was in El Nido already, I figured I should try the rocks myself. Just the ones right beside the beach which looks like the types of rocks all over the island.

yeah, NO.

I am not saying there are no rocks you can climb as I am sure there are. They are just not established and only few people know which person to ask. It seems this group found a reliable guide.

I mean look at these rocks.

Coron

Finally in Coron, I managed to follow a lead from a very obscure, old post to which Ted, the poster, introduced me to his partner, Leroy.  The latter owns his boat and brings rock climbers to locations previously mapped by a group of foreign and local climbers as deep water solo ready.  I called him and scheduled an outing at the rocks. Since I was pressed for time, we decided to only do half day of DWS. I figured I’ll be too tired anyway to do it for the whole day. We settled on the price and on the day of the climbing, he picked me up from where I was staying in town.

Note: There are some tour companies who offer ‘rock climbing’ in town. I do not trust them as much since they dont even know the rock climbing grades when I asked them about it. 

Coron has the potential to be the next deep water solo destination in Asia (right now the hub is around Railay beach in Thailand). Unfortunately, some of the great climbing areas are restricted. They are owned by the indigenous tribes in Coron and therefore not accessible to public. I tried to encourage Leroy to expand this activity because he basically has NO competition. Unfortunately, because gears are expensive (ropes, harnesses, shoes,) unless somebody sponsors him, it cant be done. I told him I’ll sponsor him as soon as I won the lottery! Until then, I will just spread the word and bring him clients (no fee or any sort of percentage for me of course!). I hope to return to Coron in the future and see his DWS/Rock climbing business successful!

There are only a few DWS routes in Coron, at least the ones accessible to us. Two of them are about 5.11c with variations up to 5.13 – waaaaaay beyond my league!  This leaves me with one option  – this rock!

I was told this is where he brings ‘beginners’. I mean I am a beginner for DWS but I have been climbing and I’ll tell you now, this is NOT a beginner route! I would say this is hard 5.10b mostly because it is inclined the rest of the way with only a few pockets of rocks where you can comfortably rest.  Seeing as I have a fear of deep water, naturally this activity sent my heart racing. I swear I spent more minutes calming my heart instead of climbing! I would climb fine and would see the water and then I either have to calm my heart before proceeding with the climb or jump down because my palms are so sweaty from nerves!

Leroy actually gave me some good advice – He said it doesnt matter how high you can climb if you cant jump from that height. This is true. This could be an easy breezy climb but there is no way down but jump. So if you are not comfortable jumping from 30 feet, well dont climb that high!

I wish I can say I conquered this rock and made it to the top lol. I finished at maybe 20 feet. My head was so dizzy with the height I just have to jump.  Because I can only focus on either the climb or the jump, I started by mapping out the holds. I climbed the first 5 feet, familiarizing my self with the holds and foot placement, then jumping down to the waters and swimming back to the boat. Afterwards, I would do the next 5 feet and so on. That worked well for me although I assume for more experienced climbers, they dont need to ‘map’ it more than 5 times.

 

This video was the only one I have and even then, it only shows one of my attempts to map it. It’s not a lot but I was so proud of myself after this excursion haha! For someone who feared heights AND deep water before, this is a success for me!

I recommended Leroy to another tourist who found my post in reddit and his picture is much cooler than mine so I’m posting it below.

Anyway, if you would like to contact Leroy, please message me and I will make the introduction and send you his contact information. Happy climbing!!

P.S. Obviously Leroy does not have any climbing gear so make sure you bring your own shoes and chalk. There is also no shop in Coron where you can rent them out.