El Bonito El Nido

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!

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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.

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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