Mindoro Strait is a strait in the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

, separating Mindoro

Mindoro

Mindoro is the seventh-largest island in the Philippines. It is located off the coast of Luzon, and northeast of Palawan. The southern coast of Mindoro forms the northeastern extremum of the Sulu Sea.-History:...

 Island from Busuanga Island (Calamian Islands) of Palawan

Palawan

Palawan is an island province of the Philippines located in the MIMAROPA region or Region 4. Its capital is Puerto Princesa City, and it is the largest province in the country in terms of total area of jurisdiction. The islands of Palawan stretch from Mindoro in the northeast to Borneo in the...

. Located within its waters is the Apo Reef

Apo Reef

Apo Reef is a series of coral reefs encompassing 34 square kilometers within the waters of Occidental Mindoro in the Philippines. It is the world's second-largest contiguous coral reef system and the largest in the country...

, the largest coral reef system in the Philippines.

The Mindoro Strait is part of an alternate route for large ships going to and from the Indian Ocean

Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...

 to the Pacific. These are ships larger than the Malaccamax

Malaccamax

Malaccamax is a naval architecture term for the largest size of ship capable of fitting through the -deep Strait of Malacca. Because the Sunda Strait is even shallower at minimum depth, a post-Malaccamax ship would need to use even longer alternate routes such as:*Lombok Strait, Makassar Strait,...

 size and therefore cannot pass through the Strait of Malacca

Strait of Malacca

The Strait of Malacca is a narrow, stretch of water between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra. It is named after the Malacca Sultanate that ruled over the archipelago between 1414 to 1511.-Extent:...

.