It depends who you read as to what this wreck
is actually called and as to where it originally came from. There is a
considerable amount of confusion regarding several of the Coron Bay wrecks
and extensive research has thrown up anomalies regarding the names of certain
of the ships.
One story I have heard is that the Olympia was formerly a Greek
vessel which was captured by the Japanese early in the war and pressed into
service as a "Maru" or freighter.
She appears to have been a combined freighter
and liner with quite extensive passenger accommodation and she has
several capacious holds which could clearly carry a considerable amount of
cargo.
The engine room has two very large boilers, which
are still in place, so she was probably no sloth when underway. Behind the
bridge there is a washroom with a tiled floor and shower heads are still
in place. It is accessed via an incredibly tight squeeze on your back
between the superstructure and the seabed and a hard 180 degree turn is
then required upwards to enter the room. Beyond this room is a large area
purportedly for passenger recreation from whence one may continue
sternwards to exit from the wreck immediately behind the bridge area.
A most disgusting looking species of white tubular worm inhabits this wreck in their thousands and when emerging you are invariably covered with them. If you hate worms as much as I do then this is not a very pleasant experience! Within the wreck it is possible to swim from hold to hold and through the engine room without having to go back outside again, each area interconnected by long corridors. It is also possible to swim through a relatively narrow gap between the boilers and out of the engine room into the hold immediately behind. The prop tunnel is readily apparent and can be entered in several places allowing a further clear route from compartment to compartment from the engine room backwards towards the stern. The prop was removed by Philippino hookah divers many, many years ago and the damage they caused is obvious, presumably caused by blowing the prop off the shaft with explosives. There is a small room at the stern which is quite tight but well worth a look as it is full of what looks like refrigeration plant cooling pipes, and an enormous shoal of tiny fish makes it's home there. At the opposite end of the wreck it is possible to enter another small room which appears to be the cable locker for the anchor chain.
This is without a doubt an absolutely tremendous dive though the visibility can be by far the worst of any of the Coron Bay wrecks due to it being situated extremely close to a commercial pearl farm. Saying that it can differ greatly on a day by day basis. There is invariably a large congregation of lionfish hanging out towards the bow of the wreck where they appear to live in and around a growth of weed on the hull plating - we saw them on every dive - prior to diving in Coron Tracy and I had only seen about 4 lionfish ever but on our first Olympia dive we spotted 7 or 8 in just that one spot! There are many other species of fish inhabiting this wreck too including the ubiquitous and highly venomous scorpion fish which are so prodigious in the Philippines. We also saw two very large crocodile fish in the boiler room area.
The ship lies on her port side in about 26 metres of water and is usually approached from the line attached to the stern immediately by the large rudder. The entire side and bottom of the wreck is covered in huge corals.
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