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So Long and Thanks for all the Fish

We are set to leave the Philippines via Manila by way of the once a week ferry. The ferry that has only bad reviews, is apparently notoriously late, can take 26-28 hours instead of 18, is often cancelled without notice, and has a disclaimer we find upon booking that the scheduled time of arrival can vary by five hours. The schedule says arrival is at noon, our flight is at 18:20. We’ve at least seen the ferry at the dock for the last few days, so it exists, that’s something! As we leave the Airbnb, the host explains that sometimes the boat just sits at the dock for hours waiting for the tide to roll in. “Good luck! ” she tells us. We check the tide times, 2am low tide, 5pm high tide. Surely 10 hours is enough time for the tide to have gotten high enough… As we swap our digital tickets for printed ones, we notice the time of arrival is no longer noon, but 3pm. We guess 10 hours isn’t enough.

The ferry has two open decks with rows upon rows of bunkbeds. There’s no storage, no privacy, and as we later find out, only a couple of toilets all these people have to share between them that results in queues and smells that I’m grateful to avoid.

Being an incredibly light sleeper at the best of times, we’ve ‘splashed’ out on getting an air-conditioned cabin for four. This contains the same bunkbeds, but we have our own private bathroom, we get sheets and a blanket, and breakfast and lunch (although oddly not dinner, despite out 5pm board time). Rather than having to listen to 60 Filipinos on their phones doomscrolling the same videos with the maniacal laughter that now haunts me, our roommates are an older Polish couple who are travelling the Philippines and Vietnam, and seem rather shell-shocked by the room. They demand of the staff that the aircon temp be raised from 17 degrees, with the staff eventually relentting and setting it to 20. When the Poles are wrapped up in scarves and hoodies, you know it’s cold. I’m just happy to not be sweating, and the aircon unit to no longer sound like a plane taking off.

The ride is smooth. I’m pretty exhausted and we’re in bed before our elder bunkmates. I thank the pharmaceutical gods for inventing antihistamines that quell the familiar stomach lurches with each wave roll and fall firmly to sleep. At 6am, an announcement over the tanoy suggests breakfast is served.

We then head back to bed until the staff come to now deliver our ‘lunch’, at 10am. A quick check of the map shows we’re already nearing Manila. Maybe we’ll arrive at noon after all!

We pack up and get ourselves ready.

Five hours later, we do in fact hit land at 3pm. There’s still time, but there isn’t money. We spent our last cash pesos on snacks, so our only means of getting to the airport is by ordering a cab on Grab (the equivalent of Uber). Except we’re clearly in tuk-tuk, not car, territory, and there’s not a Grab to be called (that doesn’t cancel once they see how far we’re going). Our buffer is now dwindling. Time ticks away, as security move us around as we desperately cling to the tiny bits of shade by the main gate, desperately hoping someone will accept the fare.

Eventually we get a message reassuring “I’m on my way”, and we’re back on track, making it to the airport, getting our first glimpses of Manila, as we get dropped back into the international terminal now, where there is an abundance of food we can buy on card. Phew. So, against all odds, we have made it, and saved a strong amount of money to boot!

The Roads Less Travelled

It was on our return trip from Ocam Ocam beach two days before, as I held on tight to the scooter under me, and James in front of me, watching the silhouette of our immediate surroundings whizz by, the setting sun transforming the sky around us, that I started to think back to our time in the Philippines, our first country in SE Asia.

Many blogs I read on this whole trip hark on about finding “undiscovered gems/beaches/restaurants/surroundings”, talking with disdain at having to share their experiences with other foreigners, constantly in search of that “authentic” experience of wherever they are. One of my takeaways from here has been how I really couldn’t care less about the first two (having accidentally gone to one such ‘up and coming undiscovered hideaway‘), but in this moment, I think I understand some of the latter desire.

As we buzzed through towns and fields where tourists don’t bother to stop, there are kids playing with sticks, with each other, with us by waving and yelling “Hi” like Navi in Zelda. Dogs fights over coconuts and their territory. Water buffalo munch away with their Egret bestie by their side. Adults chatter, eat, walk, scoot, doomscroll, harvest, work, and sell their wares. They live. Not for us. Not like in tourist hot-spots the world over we’ve been so lucky to pass through. Where lives revolve around selling tours, massages, meals, laundry, snacks, accommodations, animals, memories… you name it, to tourists. There is a verb in Spanish that comes to mind, “desvivir”, that more or less means ‘to devote yourself’, but Google also translates it to ‘to unlive’, and I see the simple but happy lives of the people here as we zoom by. Their lives aren’t ‘unlived‘ so they can serve and we can ‘live‘ ours. Peter, our host, tells us how land is burnt and stripped for agriculture, but also to be sold to the highest bidder, to build property, to sell memories to tourists. A practice happening even on our own soil in the UK. I take now that the “authentic” experience these bloggers seek is getting to know the local way of life, before tourists came and expected (or demanded) that they live their lives for us, instead of living for themselves.

As always, this desire of these “authentic” bloggers falls into the grey. Are the alternatives much better? At least in much of Latin America, and passing the many fields and tiny villages that tend to them suggest much of the same here, for many, the alternative is to toil the land, day in, day out, back-breaking work, no pension, no savings, hand-to-mouth until their bodies give up and they need their children to continue the chain. 18% of the population live in poverty here. I don’t expect their crops care about national holidays just as much as tourists don’t either, and so is it necessarily a bad thing that instead of back-breaking work, a local can sit behind a hotel desk, play with their kid, accompany tourists up a hill, onto a beach, into the water, take silly photos, pretend to be drones, or whatever else into old age? Is it not worse to demand people continue living in relative financial poverty, just so the wealthy foreigner can travel around and experience the “authentic” (and let’s be honest here, the bloggers nearly always mean “poorer”) local way of life? As with many things, I suspect the answer lies somewhere in the middle, where the culture remains in tact, but they have opportunity to earn a fair wage. I think we’ve yet to find this utopia, but at least in parts of Latin America there is a conscious effort to bring that culture back.

What I do know, is that I myself am grateful for the smooth tarmac roads, the toilet facilities, the toilet roll, the food that won’t send me back into the Bad Belly Club, the purifed water, the aircon, the broken English, the sim-card packages, the Google reviews, the tried-and-tested tours and routes that mean we can sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride/swim/sail/meal/dive. Give it all to me. I’ll leave the hard-earned hidden locations to those that have the energy for it. I’m happy sharing our amazing experiences with others (with maybe a few exceptions 😉). What a treat that is. I aim to remember this next time we’re at a site the same time as the cruise ship masses.

Hello Sir, Hello Ma-am

About the Philippines itself, whilst we’ve had a lot of fun exploring the beauty of the country, as with Costa Rica, we’ve certainly learnt nothing of the culture (except how important religion is!). This country of 7000 islands, of which we’ve only partly seen three, has shown us marine life we never knew existed. The land is lumpy, bumpy and jagged, covered in lush green, dry grass, nothing at all, rice fields, dead fields, burnt fields, sharp black limestone shards, homes, shacks, hotels, hostels and 5* resorts. A country of over 115 million people, of whom we’ve only crossed paths with a few handfuls. The people have almost all been incredibly smiley, helpful and polite, a few have looked at us with disdain and distrust. We’ve had a couple of taxis totally scam us, 5 stars my a*se. It’s been the first country I’ve not been able to communicate in the local language, and I feel immense gratitude to those that have helped us, despite our language barriers and miscommunications. It’s been our introduction to a whole new underwater world, and there’s still so much more to see and do here that I understand why so many rave about it, come here, and come back. We feel lucky to have had this taster, and I look forward to what lies ahead in Thailand!

Rule of Three

Highlights (Alex) – Feeling comfortable in water, whether that’s scuba diving, snorkelling, or just duck diving to see how far down I can go in one breath, what a shift from Nicaragua! Discovering underwater life in Moalboal, the fat starfish, the Nemos, guides like Jenny and Jan Jan being so excited to show us cool things and doing over-animated giggles to show appreciation. Being able to watch the world go by as James took responsibility for the scooting, forever grateful

Highlights (James) – Getting our PADI to unlock undersea adventures. Long drives on the moped exploring the islands. Siete Pecados best snorkelling I’ve ever done. Bonus: Red Horse beer, you’ll be missed..

Lowlights (Alex) – the staff at Victoria’s Beach House making me think we’d have to cancel our Port Barton dive and the whole stay here being a massive fail. Not sleeping due to either roosters or aircon. Buoyancy issues and feeling like I was being dragged up to the surface.

Lowlights (James) – The road to Port Barton there are better roads in Hell. The long journey to El Nido on the stopping bus. Roosters.

Takeaways (Alex) – I don’t care about being the first person to find the latest hot destination, I prefer amenities and ease of travel, maybe that’s because we’ve been going so long or maybe because I’m old lol. There’s this whole magical alien world in our waters, and yet we’re destroying it by trying to go into space. There’s loads less up-to-date info about backpacking SE Asia than there is Latin America, so many blogs are just money-farming.

Takeaways (James) – Stick to the plan. Diminishing returns. Time is running out.

Description (Alex) – Fragile, beautiful, vast

Description (James) – Friendly, cheap, stunning

Entertainment

TV & Film: Beef. Blown Away. A Haunting in Venice. The Platform. Moana. The Rat Catcher. How to Blow Up a Pipeline. Mr & Mrs Smith. Roadhouse

Books: Red Dragon. The Space Between Us. The Appointment by Jimothy Whollins. The Drawing of the Three. Silence of the Lambs

Where We Stayed

Cebu Airbnb: 3 ⭐️ creeky bunkbeds and noisy aircon but good enough for one night

Moalboal Airbnb: 4 ⭐️ very enjoyable hot tub, kitchen, free breakfast, but those damn roosters were enough to make us want to move (except everywhere seemed to have the same problem)

Constantino Guest House (Puerto Princesa): 4 ⭐️ puppies, pets, breakfast, and super helpful and friendly host

Victoria Beach House (San Vicente-ish): 3.5 ⭐️ the room we were moved to was much better, but technically would have cost more. Staff unhelpful whilst pretending to be helpful. Middle of nowhere.

Aquings (El Nido): 4 ⭐️ Really friendly receptionist. Great location. Cheap as chips

Ina Homestay (Coron): 4 ⭐️ Brilliant hosts, pool and outdoor areas, aircon was the noisiest so far (and that’s saying something). Neighbours also left a lot to be desired.

Cutting Room Floor

• Each island has a name, and on that island, there is a region with the same name of the island, and then within that region, you’ll also get a town of that name. So there’s Port Barton Town in the area of Port Barton, that’s in the region of San Vicente, that also has a village called San Vicente on the island collective of Palawan. On Cebu island there is the region of Cebu with the city of Cebu within. In Palawan, there is Coron Island, but Coron Town Proper is on the opposite island called Busuanga, but in the region of Coron, which has the airport and port that are called Busuanga, despite the Busuanga region being the northern half of the island. Moalboal is actually a town on Cebu island, and the main town of the area most people go to to dive and snorkel, which is actually called Basdiot, but no-one calls it this, they all call it Moalboal, the town half an hour away.
• Popcorn flavourings at the cinema, exciting at first but too much by the end
• James’ excitement as we hit our first 7 Eleven and he hoards half the store only to find out you can’t pay by card
• Almost everywhere in the domestic terminal of Manila airport only accepted cash, which of course we had none of.
• Our attempt back to not booking everything way in advance after the trials of Central America
• Realising this might work better when it’s not the Easter holidays and half of British holiday-makers are in El Nido
• The PADI training video feels like it was filmed twenty years ago, except they use tablets and there’s context that suggests it actually was only recently made. Nevertheless, we manage to make our way through it.
• The huge chimney coral we saw, and the huge fan coral at Neptune.
• The bus ride from San Vicente to El Nido, with just an open door for air conditioning, all our bags at our feet and on top of us, the people in the aisle who sat on or leant against my armrest/shoulder/knee, but being grateful we had a seat at all compared to the two gringas who got on at Tay Tay and had to stand in the aisle until a seat became available.
• That bus literally stopping every few metres in towns. At one point the woman being picked up was 10 metres in front of where we just picked someone else up. Not only was this annoying for how slow it made us, it meant the ‘aircon’ didn’t work.
• It’s impressive how our minds work. If someone had told us the bus would take four hours, I think we would have sustained it better. But because we expected it to only take two, it felt like each stop was a hit to our time and the seemingly never-ending journey.
• Jan Jan saying the four Russians in our group were French. I now wonder whether the times we’ve been told there are loads of French tourists aren’t just any non-English speaking tourists being clustered into “French”
• The young posh British girl who had gastro problems on the island hopping tour in El Nido, and the boat crew taking her and her friend back to shore whilst we had lunch. Nice thing to do, can’t imagine a worse place to feel poorly than on a little boat bopping about for hours.
• Realising I was literally twice their age.
• Spending the hour wait until the boat came back worrying about our stuff flying into the South China Sea as they didn’t tell us they were heading on this quick round-trip.
• Seeing everything nicely piled in a corner, everything fine. I wonder how much of my life I worry about things that have never happened.
• Seven Commandos Beach is named after the seven Japanese commandos who sought refuge on the island during World War II
• Sitting down for lunch on the island hopping tour with a big bowl of rice in front of us, but no cutlery, the older woman next to us saying “I guess we eat Malaysian style” as she jams her hand into the rice and takes a handful of it.
• Back towels, were these to keep people cool, or absorb the inevitable backsweats, or both?
• The dodgy guy who made conversation with James whilst we waited for any transport to El Nido telling me to be careful when out on my own. Yet another reminder of how lucky I am to be travelling with James this time and the blissful ignorance I have had so far in not feeling a target like a did in Latin America.
• Another reminder that privilege is something you don’t see until it’s gone, and why it’s so hard for many to understand how hard life can be when not afforded what we take for granted.
• Finding out about the animal dugong, another thing I didn’t know existed, but another thing you need a lot of money to experience.
• Having to decide whether or not to swim with whale sharks. Apparently the fisherfolk used to feed the whale sharks to stop them eating their catches. This then became a tourist attraction, and so now the whale sharks are fed specifically so that tourists can get to see them. Some studies apparently show this doesn’t have an effect on their migration patterns and habits and health, others seem to disagree. Either way, seeing the animals swimming freely in the reefs we’ve been so lucky to experience is the way we want to experience marine life.
• Maybe this is my equivalent of the “authentic” experience the bloggers talk about! I don’t want sea-life to unlive so I can see them.
• It’s in the marine-life book we are reminded that turtles are considered food in some cultures, and it makes me sad to think of these majestic, gliding creatures being literally cut down for food.
• I don’t really know why this is any different to eating lamb though, they’re pretty cute and I still eat them. Funny how our minds justify things eh!
• Jan Jan using taking a small shell from the bottom of Barracuda Lake and pretending to smoke from it
• The kids riding on the top of the fire truck that was trying to get through traffic outside the port.

Photos (in no proper order)

Departing the ferry from El Nido we arrive in Coron Town Proper on Busuanga Island, not Coron Island that’s the island opposite, but we are in the Palawan region that El Nido is also in. Confused? Imagine trying to plan this from the other side of the world! Anyway we are here now and we’ve found the right place this time. We’re slapped with a 400 pisos “environmental fee” in the ferry port, who knows where this money actually goes. It certainly doesn’t seem to go towards litter collection as they claim.

Leaving the ferry terminal we walk past a long line of tuk tuks, or chariots as they’re called out here. The locals seem perplexed that we have chosen to walk to our accommodation in the heat of the day, instead of taking the easier option they offer like 95% of our fellow passengers have taken. Our walk ends with a steep and long incline with Alex protesting “it’s not all the way up there is it?” Yes it is, time to work those leg muscles.

We arrive dripping with sweat at INA homestay and are shown to our room. It’s like walking into a freezer with the air con seemingly being on full blast all day. Although we’re quite peckish we decide to cool/wash off in the swimming pool first. Walking through the beautiful gardens of the homestay we’re viciously attacked by Lucy the tiny puppy the owners are raising. “Sorry she can be a little crazy” the workers say as we’re mauled by her tiny teeth and she tries to undo our shoelaces. Two glorious golden retrievers enter the fray and are more interested in strokes and cuddles than any violence.

The pool is 1.8m deep so I enter the only way I know how from all the scuba diving, and take a Giant Stride into the refreshing water.

We change into fresh clothes and head downhill into Coron Town for an explore and a bite to eat. We get dinner at Three Maria’s, local food is their speciality and I get the delicious Kare Kare pork in peanut sauce while Alex goes for a huge plate of noodles and meat intended for two people. We question if one of the ingredients in her dish is intestines or mushroom, luckily it’s the latter and it’s very tasty too. After dinner we have a wander around town and I spot a craft beer brew house opposite a nice looking Japanese restaurant, one for another night. We pass through the town’s sports center where locals are enjoying games of volleyball and basketball.

Seven Deadly Fins

The next morning we’re conscious our time in the Philippines is running out and Coron is our final stop. We must make the most of our time here! A morning of planning ensues and Alex asks Peter the homestay owner for some local tips. We take lunch at a roadside cafe and hire ourselves a scooter for the afternoon. It’s a 125CC engine, only a slight upgrade from James Theo in San Vicente, but it looks about twice as big, seems brand new and has rollbars too, I’m a bit nervous to drive it.

Our first destination is Bali Beach where we’ll rent a vessel to take us to the Siete Pecados (Seven Sins) snorkelling site. Another bumpy ride along something resembling a road and we arrive at our destination. I’m not sure which part of my driving triggers it but Alex decides now is the time to say we need our health insurance details handy in case we have an accident!

At Bali Beach, we speak to the owner who advises us it’s too windy to take a boat out so we will have do it the hard way and kayak there. We’re loaded up with paddles, an aqua bag, lifejackets, sponges to drain excess water and a spare snorkel and mask. We set off and battle against the wind and current to eventually reach a floating platform at the edge of Siete Pecados.

One of the blogs I read was very much bigging this place up and claimed that the snorkelling here was some of the best in the world. A big claim. Spot on too. It is incredible, even after all of the reefs we’ve seen while scuba diving, this reef, a mere stone’s throw away from the mainland, is teeming with life and so, so much to see. The first creature I spot is a chocolate chip starfish, a huge unusual looking thing at the bottom of the shallow water. I then spot another one nearby, then another, I reckon there were at least a dozen within 10 meters of where we parked the kayak.

We see too many fish to recount, constantly calling over to each other to come and look at something interesting we’ve spotted.

We leave the kayak bobbing about in the waves, hoping that Alex’s expert knots hold up and our belongings don’t float away. We pass across a very deep section of water, too deep to see the bottom or any life therein. Sadly at this point the only thing we can see in the water is the translucent shapes of various plastic wrappers and litter items floating and sinking towards the reefs.

At the other side we see many more fish species and one cheeky chap has the audacity to taste human flesh and leaves a mouth shaped love bite on my shin! We carefully dodge the painful looking sea spikes and spend well over an hour exploring the area. Unfortunately the underwater case steams up and we’re unable to get any good photos of the gorgeously colourful coral.

The knots have held up and we clamber back into the kayak. As we battle our way back to shore we’re grateful we didn’t try and reach the cave that would have meant a four hour round trip. I do most of the back breaking rowing while Alex plays with some sponges claiming we are sinking…

As we carry our kayak back up the beach we see some fellow tourists playing with one of the tiny puppies the owner is raising. He has eight fluffballs running around his estate and offers to sell some to us, we think he was only half joking.

We drive a few minutes down the road to reach the hot springs, another highly recommended local attraction. A luminous green snake slithers infront of our scooter as we enter the driveway, I hope there aren’t any bathing in the hot springs. The good news is there are no more snakes, the bad news is they really are ‘hot’ springs as the temperature reaches up to 41 degrees in some of the pools. It takes some getting used to, like slowly getting into a very hot bath. Luckily there is a ‘misting station’ nearby when we need a cool down. We hang around for a couple of hours taking dips in the pools and relaxing.

Alex desperately wants to stay and see the stars with me from the warm waters to fulfill a wish she’s had since we were in the Uyuni Salt Flats and she was too ill to join me in the hot springs under the night sky there. We wait until after sunset but we’re both getting a bit peckish and I’m wary of driving along the “road” after dark. We decide to call it and head home before the masses do the same, returning home for a super noodle meal and oats with ice cream for dessert. It’s not always glamorous!

Ocam’s Racer

With another “free day” on our hands before a diving day, we decide to go and see the Northern part of Busuanga Island based on Peter’s recommendations. We hire the same scooter as yesterday with the 125CC engine coming in useful on the long journey ahead. We take the Northern route towards the airport and after we leave Coron Town Proper we barely see a other soul on the road. The road is paved and apart from the odd crack in the cement or wandering stray dog it’s easy to drive around here. I even let Alex have a go on a scooter and she carefully scoots fifty meters down the road on her own and that’s enough for her. I’m happy to do the driving anyway, especially on days like today. We stop every so often to get some shade, sip some water or simply give our saddle sore backsides a rest on the two and a half hour drive to Ocam Ocam beach.

It’s well worth the long distance. There is a beautiful long beach lined with palms and very few people around. We take lunch at a restaurant overlooking the ocean then find a hammock and shady spot on the beach to chill out for the afternoon. Alex treats me to a fresh coconut and I feel like I’m in paradise.

As we’re about to leave, a Swedish man covered in tattoos and reeking of booze asks if we’ve been out to see the reef here. He then offers us paddle boards to take out to the reef (for a fee of course) and says we might see huge turtles or even dugongs which are essentially huge sea cows, similar to manatees. This is an offer Alex cannot refuse as she’s spotted these unusual mammals on several blogs but tours to see them are incredibly expensive. For the sake of 100 pisos (£1.70) we figure it’s worth a punt. We don’t fancy our chances on paddle boards so we just rent a snorkel and mask and a pair of life jackets. After the wonderful snorkelling at Siete Pecados yesterday our expectations are sky high, especially when the Swede says his friend believes it’s one of the best reefs in the world. High praise indeed… What follows is thirty minutes of stumbling, crawling, swimming, gargling sea water and rock dodging just to get out of the shallows… Around 200 meters from shore! We finally hit the reef and sure it’s nice but it’s not a scratch on Siete Pecados. Adding insult to injury the snorkel and mask we’ve hired are quite frankly, crap. Both of them leak no matter what we do and we’re both breathing, drinking and absorbing salt water in our mouths, noses and eyes. Grim. No sign of any sea cows or turtles for that matter.

While we recover, we notice the current has pushed us quite far away from where we’ve started. Even if the snorkelling gear is crap I’m very grateful for the life jackets as it’s an exhausting battle to swim against the current and get back to the shallows. I’m so worn out from the hard swimming that Alex gives me a lift home once we reach the shallows as she’s wearing shoes to walk over the rocky seabed. You win some you lose some I guess!

Back at shore the big Swede seems surprised we didn’t enjoy the experience and says we swam too far in the wrong direction… Ok. Alex asks if one of his Filipino companions can open up the coconut so we can eat the white flesh inside. They happily oblige and a young lad who has likely been drinking all day too hacks away with one hand on the coconut and a sharp machete in the other. How he didn’t chop his hand off I don’t know. To perk ourselves up Alex and I enjoy the tasty tough flesh of the coconut as a pick me up before the drive home. The local hacker tells us to “be careful” a dozen times before we board our trusty scooter. Hopefully it’s just the amount of booze he’s had but it doesn’t fill us with confidence!

We split the two and a half hour journey up by stopping at a viewpoint to see the beautiful sunset.

Then onto Winnie’s (again recommend by Peter) for dinner. We step into the dining area and it seems like we’re disturbing a peaceful evening for the hosts as they’re the only two people sat in there and ask how we knew about this place. The German owner, only wearing a towel for modesty, knows Peter well so welcomes us with the typical deadpan German humour. We trouble him for some delicious Thai food and make conversation with him while we eat dinner.

There’s still over an hour to go to get home and I’m flagging quite a lot by this point so Alex does a great job of keeping me awake and focused on the way home. I need it too as many of the local people drive without lights, pedestrians walk at the side of the road with no pavement in the pitch black and now and again there is a dog moonlighting as a speed bump. It’s a fascinating ride home with some highlights being the ever burning fires of weeds/garden waste illuminating the night sky and when there is nothing else around we briefly stop to admire the hundreds of stars twinkling in the sky above us.

Just before 9.30pm we arrive back at the homestay, an adventurous twelve hours on the roads is done. Straight to bed as we’re up early for another dive day tomorrow at 8.

Getting Wrecked

Time to dive and explore the depths once more. We meet our team at the Corto Dive Centre, Jan Jan our excitable guide for the day and a group of Russians (we think) make up our boat group for the day. Our first dive site is Barracuda Lake, an unusual diving spot famous for the water of the lake rather than the creatures that reside within. So what’s so interesting about the water? Well there is a cave connecting the lake to the sea. The sea water passes through a thermal source, similar to hot springs, to deliver a 38/40 degree payload of hot water into the lake! There is a transition zone where the two water temperatures meet called the thermocline and it creates a strange blurry layer, like water and oil.

We swim through a bunch of parked boats avoiding any serious injuries as boats zip by all around us. Climbing 20 steps up and back down with all of our scuba gear on is a challenge in the heat. For the first time, we’re diving without a wet suit on, I prefer but it does feel a bit weird and takes some getting used to.

At first everything is normal. The water is cold, we drop down. Then everything gets blurry. The water infront of out eyes turns to swirls and it starts heating up. There’s no way to capture this on a camera of course, the swirls are small are barely visible, like a magic eye painting. As we drop further below, the water clears as we settle into the warm water at the bottom. Particles of something, sand maybe, float in patterns in front of us, suspended in the water like being without gravity. Like the hot springs before, we adapt to the warmth, and it’s only as we move back up to the surface that we realise how warm that water was, and how cold this surface water is. Apparently there’s a ten degree difference, and you certainly feel it. It’s a novel experience.

The next stop is a Japanese shipwreck from World War Two as America sought revenge for Pearl Harbour. The Olympia Maru now sits at the bottom of the ocean floor, it’s beautiful and we’re lucky to be able to dive here, we must also remember sailors lost their lives during the surprise attack.

Our third and final dive is a British ship that was sold to Japan and also sunk in the same attack as the Olympia Maru.

In the evening we return to town and I get to try the craft beer house, run by two German divers who set it up during Covid, and we then go for dinner at the Japanese place afterwards. Both are fantastic.

Hopping & Hiking

Most of this day is spent on a boat stopping at more beautiful snorkelling spots and lovely beaches. I much prefer this island hopping tour to the one we did in El Nido. It feels less crowded and I am able to enjoy the areas a lot more without queuing up or bumping into other tourists while snorkelling. Curiously the majority of our group stays on the boat instead of snorkeling, swimming or exploring the gorgeous islands. Perhaps they can’t swim, perhaps they are just there for the views. I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking here.

Kayangan Lagoon

For our final evening in the Philippines, we hike up to the giant Coron sign sitting above the town similar to the famous Hollywood sign in LA. As is now tradition, any sunset must be accompanied by rum and coke, so we purchase some from a shop in town and head up the steep hill. There is a huge line of gringos at the top all patiently waiting to see the sunset while a local guy with a guitar serenades us all.

We head to a place offering Filipino food for our last evening meal and I savour my last bottle of Red Horse beer.

Farewell Philipines

We realise in the morning that our ferry doesn’t leave until 6pm so we spend most of the day reading, planning and eating an entire roast chicken (plus dessert) to fill us up and as an ode to South American journeys past. I’ll let Alex describe the ferry experience on another post as this one is long enough.

Thanks for reading 😊

***************

Adventure – Scooting around the island at 50km/h (before it got too scary). Reading on pristine beaches. Hot springs in hot weather. Exploring the inside of a wreck!

Excitement – More incredible dives. Fantastic snorkelling. Coconut water and flesh.

Trauma – Oppressive heat or loud rattling air con, what a choice. Not so fantastic snorkelling at Ocam Ocam.

We happen to be in El Nido (The Nest) during Holy Week, aka Easter Holidays, which means finding accommodation has been hard. So we’re pleasantly surprised when we arrive to our “beggars can’t be choosers” hostel and it’s pretty decent! Most importantly, we have two kinds of aircon, which we whack onto max after the sweaty bus, tuk tuk and walk here.

After a shower and a cool-down, we have some errands to run before we can really take in our latest destination. We circle the small town in a matter of minutes making the most of being back in civilisation, feeding hungry bellies, getting laundry handed over, booking a dive, and booking on an island hopping tour.

What better to feed some hangry bears than a schnitzel sandwich and frozen mojitos:

The constant buzzing of tuk-tuks, scooters and people rushing by is a huge change from the nothing we have just come from, and the heat away from the waterfront breeze is oppressive. With our missions accomplished, we hide back at our accommodation once more. Having had lunch at 4pm, we’ve decided to just have pot noodles for dinner to tide us over til the morning, and enjoy a pretty impressive Souper Noodle bowl for 70p.

The Imaginitively Named, Tour A

There are four island hopping tours in El Nido, and for some unknown reason, they decided to just name them A-D. Tour A is apparently the best one to do, at least according to the blogs, so that’s what we’ll do. It includes a few island beaches, some snorkelling, a kayak, and lunch. Swarms of tourists pour onto the beachfront each morning ready to be herded into their appropriate boat for the day. Our boat is called the Arribada… one of many amazing ‘spell it how it sounds’ examples in this country, and our guide Marvin welcomes us with all the energy, fun and excitement like he doesn’t have to do this day in day out. It’s impressive, and he gets the whole boat clapping along whilst he does his riff.

We start off heading out to the “Secret Lagoon”, which is of course about as secret as El Nido. We join the queues of people waiting to hop through the single-file entrance, and get our first glimpse of this small lagoon encased by sheer cliff-faces. The rocks here are reminiscent of Saruman’s tower in Lord of the Rings, with sharp jagged edges cutting into the sky, interspersed with greenery of nature that has found itself in a nook, finding any way to survive.

We have a bit of a plod about on the golden beaches, admiring the palm trees and “floating” islands around us. We can see why so many people come here on holiday, it’s beautiful.

Next we’re off to a spot to do some snorkelling. I don a life jacket and am eager to get another look at the underwater life I’ve fallen in love with. Near our boat, there are schools of electric blue small fish, but it’s by going further afield that I find a group of different, wonderfully coloured fish having some lunch of their own. I even find a solitary orange sea squirt. Despite my best attempts at taking photos, nothing beats our Dive Master Jenny on the Go-Pro, you’ll have to use your imagination. When I return, James tells me someone got back on the boat complaining there was nothing to see. I feel smug at my new-found love for exploring the water and being rewarded for it.

It’s only 11:30, but it’s time for lunch. This is our kind of boat! We’re dropped on Shimizu Island as our crew setup a table with a buffet of food for us to get through. We gorge on noodles, rice, pork, chicken and fish (sorry fish!), and many of our group begin the transformation to lobster.

Our next stop is to Big Lagoon, where ‘we’ go kayaking. James does most of the work. Expertly maneuvering us past groups of weaker tourists who give up a quarter of the way in, and through rock formations. Thwarted only by two things. His own oar, which he finds to be wider than the cave entrance, akin to a dog carrying a very large stick trying to bring it inside the house. And a tiny human so engrossed in trying to pull her parents’ kayak in the shallows she doesn’t notice us slowly but surely coming straight for her. It’s a fun meander around getting to enjoy some more of these limestone monoliths.

Last stop is to 7 Commandos beach, a picturesque beach with palm trees, volleyball nets and a shop for tourists to relax on and take in the scenery. Except for the guy warning people to not sit directly under the palm trees due to falling coconuts, less relaxing! We find a shady spot, as the rest of the group cement in their transformation to full lobster. Having spent the last few days on a huge (almost private it was so quiet) beach, we are reminded once more of how lucky we are, that this beach is just one of many stunning beaches we’ve gotten to experience in the last seven months. This is the coolest I’ve been since we’ve arrived to El Nido without aircon, so whilst everyone makes the most of their winter sunshine getaways, I’m a happy potato curled up in the shade having a snooze.

I wake with a start, just at our pick-up time, and we return to El Nido with a boat full of lobsters rather than the Caucasians we set off with. No wonder every massage parlour offers “aloe vera sunburn massages” here!

We spend the next day chilling out, having a wonderful brunch, reading, researching, blogging, hiding in the aircon, getting haircuts (only one done by a professional!), and James treats himself to a massage in the evening.

The Dive in The Nest

Our last day in El Nido is spent doing the other most popular activity here, going scuba diving. I’ve found a dive centre called El Dive run by a Japanese man called Yoshi. Our guide this time can take photos for us, so we have some souvenirs to remember each dive by.

Our boat consists of a Swedish couple, who are doing a “Refresher dive” after 10 years since certification so they can get back in the water, and three Japanese who are with us for their second dive in as many days. They have an array of photographic gear with them. Our guide today is called Ranz, he’s friendly enough but keeps to himself. I warn him about the buoyancy issues I had in Port Barton and hope today will be a better day.

Our first stop is Helicopter Island. This island is known for its tunnel, which we are too novice to be allowed into (thankfully!). Instead, we get to explore the life outside the tunnel, starting strong just in the sand before even getting to the reef.

Our first find is a black and vibrant blue striped lump in the middle of the sandy floor. In this world, it could be anything…

He gives it a little prod with his pointing device and the lump collapses into individual nudibranches! These are called blue velvet nudibranches:

We also see our first ray, a blue spotted ray. Ranz does an incredible job seeing the ray resting, incognito under the sand, only its tail and eyes poking through to hint at its existence:

James spots something else on the sandy floor, and Ranz lays his land underneath it and lifts it from the floor, as its whole body wriggles and the sand floats off it and reveals a flounder fish. Ranz hands it to James’s outstretched hand and it has a little flutter before heading back down into the anonymity of the sand. We also see many more clownfish of different colours, including black ones. Watching them scrubbing against an anemone never gets old.

Unfortunately, my buoyancy issues return, and I spend much of the second half of the dive trying to swim my way back down as my tank gets emptier, and therefore more buoyant, trying to drag me to the surface. My mask also keeps leaking, so I’m constantly breathing in little amounts of seawater through my nose (I really can’t get the hang of only mouth-breathing!). At least I don’t fly straight up to the surface this time, as there are boats constantly going back and forth up above. James by contrast is comfortable, smooth, gliding about like a pro, with more controlled breathing, as I flap and struggle my way around like Bambi on ice again. Still, we surface and excitedly start the “did you see…?!” game.

Our second stop is to North Rock, one for everyone here. Ranz gives me a different mask and as I see my tank getting nearer to empty on my gauge, I start to dump air from my BCD to try and preempt the buoyancy of the tank. This works, to an extent. Rather than shooting up, I’m now struggling to stay off the bottom. That’s far easier to manage than flying to the surface though!

This time we get to float among lots of amazing soft coral. Ranz seems to have far more confidence in us than I do, as he weaves through tight spaces and between walls of coral as I do my best to leave nature in tact. Admittedly, my best isn’t good enough in some places.

We see vast amounts of banner fish (that I call Willem Defoe in my head, thank you Nemo), lots of massive parrotfish, and a big white triangular fish called a long-fin spadefish just hovering, like an ominous force in Dune, just watching down below, and a massive wall of the beautiful ink spot sea squirts I’m a bit obsessed with:

There’s loads of life down here, even our first small current to content with.

Our final stop is to Paglugaban, and I finally find a technique that more-or-less works, so I can enjoy the whole dive. We get to see no less than three turtles on this dive, hawksbill and green.

Ranz is off getting photos of one of them whilst I float mesmerized by a couple of nudibranches. What previously I couldn’t care less about, I’m now fascinated. They’re so colourful, and small, and cute! It’s like they gave me a love potion and now I can see their true beauty, and I can also spot them everywhere. My eyes are open!

https://nudibranchdomain.org/product/chromodoris-annae/

For scale, the one I see are about 2cm max, these ones are called birder nudibranches. My love for these lil cuties firmly awakened, I start seeing them all over the place. But Ranz sees this stuff day in, day out, and so he’s off in search of more interesting fauna. He does find us a completely white nudibranch too, but seems most excited by a small fluttering creature we find out is called the Sweet Lips fish

There are also schools of big flat fish shimmering around us, that no photo does justice to. More massive parrot fish, with their jagged teeth threatening the smaller fish around them. A collection of little catfish, a huge humphead bannerfish juvenile, and a chonky pufferfish:

Despite the difficulties I have with my buoyancy, it’s still another amazing experience, with reefs and corals giving Moalboal a run for its money.

We return to shore thoroughly exhausted and satisfied.

Sipping into the Sunset

We decide to treat ourselves to some cocktails infront of the sunset for our last night in El Nido. On our way into town, there were posters advertising Sip Sunset Bar on almost every lamp-post, and it was clearly worth the money. We walk our way over to the other beach of El Nido, through the chaos of tuk-tuks, mopeds, hawkers, street sellers, cars and noise, and are amazed at the peace and tranquility of the beach just one block away. We’re early and get prime seating on the beach-front. Free welcome shots are handed to us by Bob, who introduces himself as the host for the evening, and wants to “welcome [us] home”, something he does for all the patrons here. The owner also is around and does the same. An incredible level of service, so simple but affective. We have a couple of happy hour cocktails as the sun sets behind the rocks, and we enjoy the changing colour of the sky over the horizon.

We end the evening with a dinner at Big Bad Thai, gorging on amazing spring rolls, deep fried rice balls (akin to arancini), and two curries that make us sweat even more than the sweltering ambient heat of this town. For dinner, we have Nutella crepes back at the hostel, and pass out exhausted in stuffed, tipsy haze.

El Nido has been a hot, sweaty, beauty, full of Brits abroad, but amazing food, service, sights, and a maybe few too many sounds 😉 I can understand why so many people like it here for holidays, it’s a good place to come and experience island hopping, snorkelling, diving, good food and drink, all in one place, so you can do it all in a short amount of time, without lengthy buses or vans. It’s been fun, but wreck dives call us on.

*********************

Adventure – Island hopping, more sea exploration

Excitement – being able to finally see the elusive nudibranches, seeing a sting-ray, discovering James doesn’t have a weird shaped head under that hair!

Trauma – feeling dragged up to the surface, breathing seawater, a brief visit to the Bad Belly Club

Parts Unknown

Crossing over from Cebu island to the island of Palawan is fairly painless, except for the aborted landing that gives us a bit of a shock as we attempt to land at high speed. We’re informed by the captain we had a strong tailwind! The long journey is broken up by spending a night in Puerto Princesa. We don’t see much of it, landing after dark and staying in a hostel close to the airport. Apparently there is an underground river that is a MUST SEE, but we’ve seen plenty of amazing caves and by this point in the travels we prefer to stay in one place for longer rather than trying to do too many locations. We pop out for dinner and I have a Red Bull to provide some wings. It’s served in a tiny bottle and looks and tastes more like medicine than the sugary version we have back home. We return to our hostel and crash out after another tiring transfer day.

In the morning we notice the guesthouse we’re staying in houses a miniature zoo. There are various reptiles in cages and a couple of tiny pups run between our feet. The owner is really friendly and helps us organise our transport to Saint Vicente. So far everyone has simply told us to turn up at the bus station and hope for the best. With some help we’re able to arrange for a shared van to collect us from here and take us directly to our accomodation some way North of Saint Vicente town proper. Somehow, despite searching in the area of Port Barton, the beach house we’ll be staying at for the next five nights is 73km away from there. Not quite what we had in mind!

A bumpy five hour journey later we arrive at Victoria Beach House. Our room overlooks the ocean, opens straight out into the bar/restaurant area and has immediate access to a huge empty beach. We’ve made worse mistakes.

We spend our first afternoon settling in and I take a walk along the beach. Annoyingly there is a rope and a “Temporarily Closed” sign blocking access to the adjacent beach I’d hoped to walk or run across in the next few days. All of the staff seem confused about this and simply advise me it should be open, just walk across the rocks they say. Alex and I ponder what we’ll do for the next few days as we’re pretty cut off from anywhere popular and there isn’t much to do in the local area except beach.

Walking along the beach earlier I noticed the small waves were an odd colour, deep green. There is a lot of seaweed/algae in the water that is so dense it’s changed the colour of the sea! We have the first meal in the beach house restaurant (surrounded by friendly stray dogs) and retire to bed. To our dismay there is a local family staying in the room across from ours and they’re enjoying a Filipino’s favourite pastime all afternoon, karaoke through a speaker… Once that finishes the family in the room next to us make a real racket, and through the thin wooden walls we can hear every word. We try to drown them out with the air con but neither of us sleep particularly well.

All change please

After a pretty disturbed night… at one point the air con cut off and there was a lot of shouting and shrieking from next door… We request to change rooms for the first time on our trip. It works a treat as we’re technically upgraded to a more modern room at the back of the property with a nicer layout and most importantly, solid walls away from the hustle and bustle.

Once we’ve settled into our new digs, we head out for another beach walk. Sadly, even though the beach is usually deserted and we’re often the only people on it, there is a lot of litter. This time we decide to do something about it and take a couple of carrier bags with us to pick up some plastic before it is gobbled up by the ocean. It doesn’t take long for us to fill two bags. I don’t think we’ll win any conservation awards but it’s rewarding to do our part for pachamamma.

Even after a short half hour walk, in this heat we’re absolutely baking. The tide is stronger today and seems to have washed all of the algae back out to sea. We cool off in the waves and bring our body temperatures back down. We feel the occasional sting, something is prickling at our skin. It doesn’t hurt but it’s quite a weird sharp itch. We try to figure out what it might be, jellyfish or some spiky seaweed? We later discover it is angry plankton!

Following a delightful backpacker meal of granola, incredibly sugary liquid yoghurt and mini banana float, we attempt to secure transportation for our scuba dive trip tomorrow.

The scuba dive centre has told Alex there’s a direct route not shown on Google. Our place rents out scooters for 700 pesos (£10) a day, so we enquire about hiring one from 7am tomorrow. Curious why we need one so early, we explain to the receptionist that we intend to drive to Port Barton. She seems confused, tells us it’s too far, and clearly they don’t want us to use their bike to get there and refuse. Hmm. A spanner is in the works. There’s no public transport here and any private transfer would cost a small fortune. They offer a private transfer at 4000 pesos (£57). Disheartened, but determined, Alex wanders next door to see if they can be more helpful. She chats to a couple who have literally just arrived from Port Barton by scooter. It most certainly is possible. Their reception indicate a bike hire shop just one block from our accommodation. They offer us a bike for 500 and say they’re open from 6.30 so a 7am pickup won’t be an issue. Phew.

Returning to town later in the afternoon we pickup some more rum and coke that is so cheap it’s hard to believe. A 400ml bottle of rum is around £1.40, two small bottles of coke for around half that. We take our haul to the beachfront and watch a glorious sunset, well oiled on rum and sugar.

For our evening meal we try the Turtle Beach place next door. We sit out facing the beach and are served by a friendly young woman who, like most Filipinos, greets us as Sir and Ma’am. We feel like royalty. Alex tries the XL burger and fries while I settle for some fried chicken. Not quite the food you’d expect at the seaside but oddly it’s rare to see any good fish on the menu despite the proximity to the ocean.

Dive and Drive

After a much better night of sleep we arrive bright eyed and bushy tailed to pick up our moped for the day. It’s name is James Theo. We’re advised not to fill it above 4 bars of fuel as something needs fixing. That’s all we’re told and we’re on our way! Unsure what to expect from the roads today and expecting the worst, I’m pleasantly surprised to discover the road to Saint Vicente is paved and quiet. We have a smooth ride for the first hour and despite a couple of wrong turns we make it to our marker of Paragua Town in good time. That is sadly where the paved road ends. From here to Port Barton, which is still an hour away, it’s bumpy rocks, loose gravel, dust, sand and even a water hazard making up a so called road. I haven’t done much driving on a scooter and having seen some of the resulting scars in Thailand years ago, I’m keen to avoid any accidents, especially with Alex on the back. It’s difficult and exhausting and I’m now racing against the clock to make it to the beach on time whilst ensuring we keep our bodies intact. Somehow we arrive at the beach just in time and count our limbs. They’re all still attached.

Good road:

Bad road:

We quickly change into our swimming gear and board the boat that’s bobbing around just off shore. We meet our group and dive masters for the day and set sail. Our first stop is the ‘Swimming Pool’ dive site around 45 minutes off the coast of Port Barton. Visibility is not great and the scene is a bit more drab and lifeless than the vibrant coral reef in Cebu. Still it’s what we wanted in terms of being able to practise our diving without our instructor Jenny. One of the more interesting creatures we see is a cuttlefish stalking across the seabed with it’s alien-like tentacles.

Next up is our first wreck dive. The sunken vessel is a cargo ship that sank around 50 years ago. It’s incredible to see how quickly nature has claimed and smothered it with pink mushroom shaped corals. Our guide takes us into the interior of the ship and we swim through a rusted doorway, not an easy feat with a huge cylinder on our backs! There is an air pocket which our guide advises we stick our heads up into. It’s very disconcerting to have your head in open air knowing you’re 20 meters underwater. As we descend back through the large bowel of the wreck, a huge school of fish sit there with their deadpan stare just bobbing around in the water like this is a natural place for them to call home. It’s a shame we don’t have any pictures from this dive as it’s difficult to explain the ghostly sight of a sunken ship reclaimed by the eerily still silence of the depths.

We ascend and board our boat once more. The most difficult part of a dive is removing the giant rubber fins while clinging onto the side of a boat in the choppy water! Usually the dive guide or boat crew help us with our gear, making life a lot easier than when we had to do it all ourselves while earning our PADI. Lunch is a triple deck club sandwich and a mini banana, filling enough as our next dive is not far away.

As we prepare for our third and final dive of the day, some [possibly Russian?] members of our group hawk and spit into their masks while the rest of us use the more socially appropriate liquid soap. “We prefer organic” they state as they swivel remnants of their lunch around the inside of their mask. Gross.

Our final dive is a visit to the Coral Garden. It is not as colourful or full of life as the Moalboal reef but it is astounding in a different way. As far as the eyes can see there are giant cabbage shaped coral sprawling in all directions, providing an underwater world similar to something from a Disney movie. Not many memorable fish live down here but the sunken vegetation makes for another impressive dive site. I’m glad we stuck with our PADI training and unlocked access to a fascinating world below the surface.

We return to the beautiful beach of Port Barton and get a drink at Happy Cafe on the shore wanting to spend a little bit more time here where we meant to stay. Alex gets a fruit juice and craving a pick-me-up for the slog home I ask for a Red Bull. The servers look at me like I’ve asked them to bring me a painted bovine. “Errr energy drink?” seems equally perplexing so I settle for an Americano instead.

The first half of the journey home is definitely challenging as expected but by taking it slow we reach the tarmac road unharmed. The sun is starting to set behind us providing a lovely backdrop to the journey. I play our Travel Playlist from my phone and we cruise home listening to songs that remind us of our journey so far. Bliss.

Rest Day

After such an adventurous day yesterday, we have a relaxed one without doing much at all. The only memories from today are talking to a nice chap on the beach who is opening a cafe in June and is excited to tell everyone about it (despite Filipino planning permissions) and trying a Smirnoff Mule for the first time having seen them everywhere. They’re pretty good.

Long Beach

Another day requiring a moped to get us around and the reliable James Theo is sat waiting for us at the rental shop. We drive South, past the mysteriously closed beach which we have now discovered is closed due to filming of the TV show “Survivor”. We drive down a passageway that takes us to a spot on Long Beach, earning it’s named with 18km of unbroken white sand. Again it’s practically empty and we find a spot in the shade of a palm tree, ensuring we’re out of range of falling coconuts! We spend around an hour reading and chasing shade before finding a different spot to have a dip and cool off.

For lunch we head into Saint Vicente town and I can’t resist the crispy leg of pork that looks delicious. It’s bigger than I anticipated and I end up taking half of it home for my evening meal, throwing some of the scraps and fatty bits to the Alsatian-like dog sat next to me drooling. For dessert we share a Mango Graham, again something we’ve seen throughout the Philippines but haven’t yet tried. It’s very refreshing in the heat and I suspect we’ll be having a few more of them before we leave these islands.

In the evening we head to a couple of viewpoints on the moped. While I’m driving along a sandy, quiet road a loud rumble in the shrub precedes a giant monitor lizard bounding across the road. It must have been 4-5 feet long and gives us quite a shock! After Godzilla has crossed our path we nervously continue onwards, wary of the slightest rustle. We reach the stunning viewpoints and take some photos to cap off another adventurous day.

Where there’s a will…

Right, time to move on to the popular and much more touristic spot of El Nido. How do we get there then? Well everyone we’ve asked over the last few days, and trust me we’ve asked quite a few people, tell us to go to the crossroads and flag down a van. Sounds simple enough. That is until we come to check out and the hostel owner tells us the police have been cracking down on unauthorized van pick ups and people have been calling her saying no vans wil stop, can they get a private transfer. She offers us the private transfer option which is at least five times what we thought today’s journey would cost us. Great. We figure we’ll give it a go anyway and if all else fails we’ve got an expensive backup plan. We take one of the strange electric vehicles that somewhat resemble the Pope Mobile up to the crossroads 7km outside of town. We join a group of locals and through broken conversation we discover they’re also trying to get to El Nido and have been here for some time. A handful of vans pass us by with a helpful toot of their horn to acknowledge our presence at the side of the road with our thumbs sticking out. Luckily our prayers said in the Pope Mobile have been answered and a local bus going to El Nido pulls up after about 10 minutes. It’s not a pleasant journey as it’s baking hot with no air con and in towns the bus stops every few meters to pick up or drop off passengers, but it’s dirt cheap and gets us to where we want to go.

****************

Adventure – Diving without Jenny to guide us. Driving through stunning locations (when the road was good). Sunsets with rum cokes, it never gets old.

Excitement – Underwater wonder. Larry the lizard, our cheeky flatmate who greeted us each night with a “GWACK” as he scurried back under our bed in fright.

Trauma – Ending up in the arse end of nowhere. Rocky roads. Vegetable chop suey, literally a bowl of basic steamed veg for 300 pisos. So much unwanted sand.

BONUS LARRY

The Journey

Our next stop after Hawaii is the Philippines. A place called Moalboal on the island of Cebu to be specific. No good deed goes unpunished, and with all the time changes I have no idea how long this beast of a journey took.

Our first stop was Tokyo, where we crossed the date/time divide, and technically landed in Japan before we left Hawaii. Japan Airlines gives United a run for its money as we get fed in abundance. The array of entertainment, however, is not great. We get our first taste of Japanese toilets, trying to convert from Yen, and try to have a sleep in the airport whilst we wait for our connecting flight:

The next leg is to Manila, where we are again given a proper meal. Although the meal includes fish eggs, some weird sour ‘salad’, and a freezing cold, maybe pickled?, aubergine. The flavours are a lot for dinner/breakfast. We still don’t know what meal of the day it was meant to be. Maybe looking less forward to Japanese food now!

We have a solid seven hour wait in Manila until our connection to Cebu island. I ask our man at the check-in desk if we can get on an earlier flight… sure, for an extra £150 each. Nope.

The heat of Manila is a shock to me, and for the capital city airport, it’s lacking. Whilst we share a bite and discuss next steps, I see an email saying our flight has been delayed for another three hours. That means ten hours in the airport, after I don’t know how many hours since we left the glorious Airbnb of Hawaii. Sigh.

I decide to wander back to check-in and see if we can get a bump to that earlier plane, now we have an even longer wait. After conferring with his supervisor, he confirms we can, free. Absolute win! I am giddy to tell James, and we go through to departures with only a short wait to take off.

It’s a quick up and down to Cebu, where we will spend the night before the final leg to Moalboal. At least here we’ll have a bed to sleep in, instead of an airplane or airport chair.

When James told me we were going to Cebu, for some unknown reason I imagined an island paradise. What it actually is, is the second largest city in the Philippines, with all its expected chaos, dirt, poverty and noisy glory. After our time in Cancun and Hawaii, I’m back to culture-shock.

On the way we see a huge fire burning in an area we assume is a dock. We later find out this was a slum settlement and over 200 ‘homes’ were destroyed. People who already had so little, now without even the sheets of metal over their heads they called home.

Cebu

It’s time for our favourite game of, New Country Admin, interspersed with seeing Dune 2. We have an hour. Go! James tries to find cash. I try to find a sim card. I fail. James succeeds. We rush to the cinema and find out there’s no trailers for films here and have missed the first few minutes. Still, it’s a nice escape from the last [however many] hours of travel we’ve done, and thankfully we stay awake to watch it all. The last time we went to the cinema was in Santiago, maybe five months ago. We can barely believe it.

Post film, it’s back to finish the SIM mission I started, as we are thwarted by technology once more, demanding details we don’t have to register. Eventually, we get online and can get to that bed we’ve been dreaming of.

Aircon on, James crawls into the lower bunk completely exhausted… until the aircon stops. I message the host to see if there’s a trick I’m missing, and there’s a knock at the door. A young teenager dressed in an oversized security guard outfit sheepishly stands at the door and says something. I figure he’s not out trick-or-treating but is the night guard, and I try and explain the aircon situation. He tries to explain we need to move rooms. James is having none of it, already half asleep. The host tells me that we have no choice, the engineer will come first thing to fix it. James, so close and yet so far from that elusive sleep he can usually easily get, crawls back out of bed to pack. I start doing the same, and as I do, my backpack knocks the cable of the aircon and it clicks back on. Whilst I had tried everything else, I hadn’t tried wiggling the cable for a loose wire. I’m just grateful James can get back into bed.

At last. To sleep.

Our final leg down to Moalboal goes even better than planned as we jump straight onto the next bus, taking us in four hours from city chaos to that lush greenery I was imagining. A quick haggle with a tuk-tuk driver and we’re inching our way closer to our final destination. After paying a tax we didn’t know existed, our driver eeks and ows with every single bump of his tricycle tuk-tuk, as though he’s on a comedy skit, and there are a lot of bumps. He drops us off, and points in a direction. We walk. We walk. We walk. The directions on Airbnb are as confusing as always. The Google map address takes us to a private property. The sun is baking us in all our black travel clothes under the weight of our backpacks. We retrace our steps and just ask everyone and anyone. A friendly gringo yells out to offer help, and we ask the reception of his accommodation. “That’s here” the receptionist says. Just the place we’ve walked passed almost three times now. But we’re here. 55 hours since we left the Airbnb in Hawaii. We’re finally, here. Moalboal, a place renowned for its diving. So let’s get to it shall we!

Dive Another Day

We’ve decided to do what’s called a “Discover Dive”, where you learn and practice some scuba diving basics, before getting out for a quick dive to see how you find it. Our guide is Raul, and he teaches us how to go up, down, clear our masks, and replace our regulators (the mouthpiece you breath from) if it comes out. We both seem to manage these skills without issue, and so it’s time to hit the reef! We quickly learn that buoyancy and moving around with flippers on is a right pain in the bum, and we flounder and flail and bump one another like bambi on ice, but underwater. Despite discomfort and unease, we get to see some incredible life in even this shallow part of the reef wall, including Nemo and his dad having a scrub in an anemone just like in the film.

As we exit and debrief, I decide I want to go ahead with Open Water Certification. James is unsure. Time for a rest and decompress, by hiring a moped and driving into the mountains for hours!

Osmeña

One of the land-based activities to do here is to go up into the lumpy highlands of Badian. According to Google it should take just over and hour, so we decide to make an afternoon of it, have a break deciding about the PADI, and make it back before it gets dark. After deciding against a multi-gear motorcycle offered by our hostel… James secures us a hulking beast of a scooter, we agree to a safety word of “CLEAR!” if he feels it start to fall, we don our too-small helmets, check the map, and head off.

We pootle along, moving up along winding roads, as the heat finally dissipates and there’s respite from the heat of the baking Philippines sun. An hour in, however, and we’re still literal miles from our destination. It seems we are going half as fast as Google expected. A recalculation of our trajectory and we agree to keep going and see how far we can get.

Along the way, we get toots, beeps, and “Hey!”s from the locals. We’ve clearly watched too many horror films as our immediate thoughts are that they are trying to warn us about something ahead, and that we should turn back. We spot a wide human-shaped Wickermanesque lump standing stiff in the road ahead… only to realise as we near it that it’s a giant basket of cabbage waiting for pick-up. Proceeding around the corner, fields of cabbages surround us and an oddly placed human-size cauldron sits next to the road. Are we about to be turned into a meal? Assuring ourselves that we are not going to become gringo-soup, we settle in to this new way of interacting with locals, and start waving and smiling back at each tiny human who runs out to great us with glee. I’m able to take in the opening views around us as we go further into the mountains, and the vast fields of cabbages that are being hand-harvested all around.

Eventually, we make it to the Osmeña peak tourist centre. The sun is already lowering in the sky, but thankfully it’s only a short walk to the top now. Still, you have to be accompanied by a ‘guide’.

The guide tries to make standard conversation, saying how English are a kind people, but any question we ask is met by an answer to a completely different question. It’s a sad reminder that I can no longer speak the local language, creating an immediate barrier between us and them.

On the short way up, our ‘guide’ does point out several things (although we don’t understand what they are), and gets us to do various silly poses for photos in various spots. One tourist jokes “you’re not a guide you’re a photographer“, and we realise this is the truth of it. People want photos more than they want information these days, and so they’ve prioritised these skills over the latter. We play along, but it’s an odd situation where we just want to take in the stunning view, and breath the cool, clean air. Whilst our guide wants to make sure we have every photo possible, including mimicking a drone video. We feel old!

Noticing the sun creeping closer to the horizon, we make a swift exit back down, bid farewell to our ‘guide/photographer’, have a square of fudge mum brought out from Otford for energy, and start the long journey back down. The kids now running for high-fives as we pass, and us weaving about eager not to disappoint.

Thanks to James’ great driving, we make it back after dark (oops), satisfied, shattered, and ravenous. The journey has also given James time to decide that he’ll do the PADI with me.

We extend our reservation at the Airbnb, book on to start in two days’ time, book our next flights with this in mind, and James books onto a canyoneering tour tomorrow as a last ditch attempt to injure himself and not have to go ahead (just kidding!).

Over to James…

Jump before you are pushed

I’m picked up by “Jonathan”, alone on his moped outside our hostel and once again I wonder if I’m about to be turned into sausages. Luckily I’m not on the menu today and I’m dropped off to wait with the rest of the foreigners to jump off rocks in a canyon. Halfway there we stop off to get kitted up. There’s over twenty people in a small room. One person adjusts my helmet while another fits my lifejacket, meanwhile three separate people attempt to sell me a locker a waterproof phone case and a Go Pro rental. It’s chaos.

Eventually we’re back in the van and on the road to the start of our plunging adventure. On the way we pass an ‘arena’ which an American in our group recognises as a cock fighting location. Clearly this somewhat cruel gambling game is still legal over here! We reach the start of the Canyoneering trail and are given the world’s shortest safety briefing, Costa Rica rafting this is not. During the short briefing I notice signs on the wall for various gun ranges, shotguns, pistols and rifle shooting available to all.

We start the trail, a forty minute walk in the drizzle while a Latvian family in my group take the easier option. A quick zip line across the valley cuts their walk down to just five minutes. As we wait for them, I’m relieved to see a signpost indicating that the highest jump is “only” 30ft, half the height of a 60ft drop I’d read about on a blog post that left me a little scared.Finally we’re into the cold waters of the canyon river. Many guides provide support for our group. Curiously all their names begin with J including our leader, ‘Captain Jack Sparrow’. They all have the humour of mischievous school boys and crack endless jokes all the way down the canyon to keep spirits high. The first jump isn’t too bad, between 12-16ft high with no time to think about it I throw myself into the water below. First one done. There are a couple of rock slides where you lie backwards and are pushed down a smooth natural ride. A ‘THIS IS SPARTA’ kick recreation for anyone that’s seen 300.

In the calm sections we form water snakes and the guides drag us through while singing “The wheels on the bus go round and round”. I think they enjoy their job as much as the tourists.

Another jump section, this one is 21ft but I spot a few people jumping in from 15ft. “Can I jump from there?” I ask Captain Jack, “No Sir, that is the girl’s jump!” My pride in tatters I jump from the girl’s height, along with the 6ft2 Latvian man and pretty much the rest of the group. One of only two people to jump from higher up is a German girl called Leonie who rightfully states that we came here for the adrenaline so why not do it all.

After a bit more meandering and a short walk the final jump comes into view. The 10 meter/30 ft platform doesn’t look too bad from a distance. We climb up to it and it’s a running jump into Oblivion. Leonie’s words from earlier ring in my ears, this IS what we came here for, I can regain my pride. Only Leonie and an American from our group are in front of me and throw themselves off like suicidal lemmings. I take the run up and commit to the drop. It feels like you’re in the air for an age before the water gratefully swallows you up and absorbs your velocity and fear.

A bit of light relief after the big jump, Tarzan rope swing. Many tourists try to copy the acrobatics of our guides and attempt backflips with various degrees of success. The last part of the adventure is climbing behind a massive waterfall and jumping through it’s powerful liquid curtain to swim out in it’s current. A guide points out a ruined platform beside the waterfall, that’s the 60ft jump that the blog was talking about. Luckily for me it was ruined by a typhoon a few years ago!

Back to Alex

Open Water Crash Course

We enjoy our downtime in this tiny tourist town, mostly enjoying eating out for every meal as food is back to being well within our budget, after scrimping all the way through Central America and Hawaii. James discovers Red Horse, a 7% beer for less than the price of a water in London.

When we’re not eating, drinking, napping in aircon, or dreaming of a rooster massacre, we do our homework of getting through the PADI training material to learn everything we need for the exam. The rest, is practice.

Our instructor is Jen/Jenny/Jenelyn. A tiny young Filipino woman with a beaming smile and calm and ease underwater like she was born in it.

Our first morning involves learning and practicing necessary skills, largely to do with how to check our kit on land, removing, replacing, and filling our masks with water, different skills with the regulators and using our partner’s, and buoyancy control. I fail on a few of these tasks, but Jenny gets me through them, for better or worse.

This part of the course is called ‘confined water’ dives, because they are typically done in a swimming pool. However, we are doing all these out in the shore in the open sea. The wavy, choppy, sea, with a current that keeps us moving even if as we try and stay still. Not only does this add a layer of difficulty to the exercises we’ve seen once on video and now have to recreate in real-life, it’s making me sea-sick.

At our lunch break, I am exhausted, flustered and dissuaded by the whole experience. I ask if James wants to carry on, assuming he has struggled as much as me. Thankfully, the issues he had with Raul have not occured with Jenny, and so it’s actually him (and a big plate of food) that settles my nervous mind (and stomach), and decides to continue. Plus, when have we given up on anything before? We’re not going to start now. Two others who started that same morning don’t return. I feel a bit better realising it’s clearly been a tough few hours and it’s not me that’s the problem.

The afternoon continues with some more floundering under and above water, and my almost drowning myself trying to breathe only through my mouth and failing. All that nasal-breathing training we’ve been doing at Chasing Lights out the window! To my relief, we don’t practice the skills I suck at. On the one hand I’m grateful. On the other, I hope I never have to replace or swim with my mask off in real life, because it is a skill I definitely did not learn to do. We also appreciate that whilst learning all these skills was significantly harder with the buffeting waves, it will have made us better divers having practiced them out in the real environment.

After a grueling first day, our reward is another swim to the reef, much more controlled and calm this time compared to our baby-steps with Raul. The reef so alive and full of colour, completely unphased by our presence. No more headaches and nausea discussions, just the excitement at all the new things we’ve seen.

The next morning we spend out doing more open water practice and checking out the reef, seeing amazing life and creatures. My favourites are the starfish. There’s a thin, bright, blue one that limply wraps itself against the reef wall.

Then there’s the fat, chonky “granulated starfish”, like someone has inflated it with a pump:

As we return to shore, a turtle idly munches on some seaweed in the bay, as if to say, “see, it was all worth it, no?“

Jenny does a fantastic job at not just pointing out all the incredible life down here, but correcting us with many a finger wag and enforcing better habits. Despite the masks and regulators covering every inch of our faces, you can see the joy and excitement each time Jenny spots something to show us, as we respond with our new hand-signal… “Radical”:

Our certification is completed by two more open water dives off a boat this time. Which means taking a “giant stride” off the edge of it. I’ve been struggling to jump into water even into a pool in a bathing suit, so this is a hard one for me, in this huge amount of gear into the ocean deep. But when there’s everyone around you waiting, unknowing the fear-mongering thoughts in your head, there’s no time to give them credence, and so in we leap.

At two new reefs now we do some final practice, and then explore the new scenery. It’s just spectacular. Jenny does a great job capturing much of the life for us on the go-pro, but of course nothing can capture the real thing of just floating in the water and watching an alien world go about its business. We learn that almost everything down here is an animal, things that look like plants, are actually animals. There are these animals called Nudibranches, that are these amazingly colourful slug-like creatures. Here’s some stolen photos from Google to whet your appetite as we didn’t get photos of them ourselves:

These are animals! Not brightly splattered vases from an art class:

A feather starfish, not a plant!

There’s so much life down here that I never knew even existed, and I can understand why people get obsessed with the world down here. Jenny does a fantastic job taking photos for us to commemorate our final open water certification dives:

This is a nudibranch called Spanish Dancer, you can see why! (Definitely thought this was a plant):

We return to shore amid conversations of “did you see…?”, “how cool was…!”, before heading to lunch to do a quick bit of revision as our final exam is after lunch. The exam is less like an exam and more like a reminder of things we don’t know, as we complete it on our phones whilst discussing what the answers might be and tactically go through informing each other which is wrong based on who has the least wrong so far. We unsurprisingly pass.

And that’s that! Apparently we’re now trained enough to go diving just the two of us! Which seems like madness, and not something we have any desire to do. We celebrate with a final rum and coke watching the sun go down, a hearty meal at James’s favourite The Three Bears, and pack up for our next stop, the island of Palawan.

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Adventure – scootering into the mountains, exploring the underwater world

Excitement – seeing so many amazing new things and discovering a whole array of things I never knew existed on this planet

Trauma – almost drowning, roosters, from 3am til 6pm, damn all the roosters