Julien's Wreck

Archived listings describe a shallow wreck near Turtle Island. Easy Diving's older account gives 6 metres, while Artistic Diving gives 7 metres and a nearby reef descending to 30 metres. The wreck depth and present condition remain unconfirmed; reef depth is not treated as wreck depth.

This is a partial site guide based on retained dive listings. Conditions, access, seasonal suitability and current operating arrangements have not been checked by a local diver. The map position comes from a published dive-site dataset and should be confirmed with a local operator before planning a visit.

Source trail (not independent corroboration): Archived operator account; Archived operator account; Directory map record.

Coral on the wreck

Artistic Diving’s archived 2019 description reports coral growth on the wreck and mentions viewing it while snorkeling. That historical suggestion does not confirm present snorkeling suitability, visibility or access. The coral-covered wreck and the adjoining deeper reef remain separate features, and the conflicting wreck-depth figures remain unresolved.

The ship behind the name

A German-language page on ss-panay.com, archived in August 2018 and again in March 2024, identifies Julien's Wreck as the MV Guimaras. It says the ship ran aground during Typhoon Ellis in 1979 on a reef plateau barely 6 metres deep south of Turtle Island, could not be refloated, and was officially abandoned by its owner, Compania Maritima, on 18 June 1979. The page gives the grounding date as 6 June 1979 in its text and 6 July 1979 in its data table; that discrepancy is left as recorded. It adds that tides and typhoons have since broken the wreck up so thoroughly that its original shape and size can hardly be made out, and that the shallow, sunny site is a highlight for many divers and photographers and is visited regularly. The same page lists the ship's earlier identity as the Sidi-Aich, built in France and operated from Marseille before passing to Compania Maritima of Manila in 1964. Sea Explorers' current Sipalay dive-site page also calls the site the M/V Guimaras and describes it as an artificial reef attracting schooling fish, lionfish, scorpionfish, batfish and nudibranchs, with plenty to explore from the outside.

Operator and visitor accounts over two decades

Easy Diving's description, as reproduced by PADI Travel, calls it a cargo-ship wreck dive with some current at 6 metres and says the quiet big wreck is broken in parts by several storms and scattered over a large area, with diving or snorkelling possible. A taucher.net review of Easy Diving dated 23 January 2005 describes Juliens Wreck as a beautiful place to finish a dive at 6 metres, with three wrecks, moray eels, stonefish and a crowd of aquarium fish; the three-wreck remark is that reviewer's, and no other source here repeats it. An Undercurrent review of Takatuka Lodge from April 2018 mentions a picturesque shallow wreck, spelled Julian's Wreck, that the resort visited all the time. SSI's Sipalay destination page names Julien's Wreck near Turtle Island as a must-see for wreck divers. These accounts agree on a shallow, broken-up wreck south of Turtle Island but describe it from different years; none is a current condition report.