day 3 - 100 islands day tour
Time to wake up early for our boat tour. Luckily, in Philippines there is always a cock waking you up in the morning. We had a good breakfast and squeezed ourselves into a tricycle with the French friends (a young couple). At Lucap wharf the boatsman was already waiting for us with his 2 cute helpers. He had a nice traditional bangka boat with side stabilization and sunprotection. Soon we were sailing in between the green islands in clear blue water.
Critical thinkers as we are... we counted if it was really 100 islands but we just counted 99 of them. Legend says that one island is actually a big moving seaturtle... but it is more common believe that some smaller islands disappear under water depending on the tide. The first island we visited is called Gouvernors island. The stairs to the top were a good excercise by itself. The unobstructed view on the other islands was very rewarding though.
From Governor’s island there is a floating bridge towards a smaller adjacent island. It was a real challenge to cross the bridge as the waves bring you out of balance. We hold each other and had fun all the way. One of the Boatsman helpers showed us a nice secluded beach on the other side of the island. One of the best beaches I’ve seen in Philippines. It had waves, a sandy beach covered with corals benches to relax and overhanging trees for shading. We relaxed there for an hour. Walked bare food in the waves, found some nice shells. We took more selfies with the funniest filters had and quick dive in the water since the water temperature was pleasant. Coming from the cold Netherlands it felt so fullfilling. At the benches we had a little picknick and played music with our phones. The beach had a view on the zipline there. So every few minutes someone was flying by and screaming, which was pretty amusing to watch. Such a relaxing memory...
After that we visited Quezon island and virgin island, both green island with sandy beaches in between. Lots of corals under water for some good snorkeling.
On our request we visited one more island. The sun was about to set, but we couldn’t stay until dark, so the boatsman brought us back to the warf. The total price for the day tour was 1200 php per person. My advice would be to bring your own lunch and drinks, since they are not easily available at the islands.
Later on the evening we walked outside our house to ask if we could use their kitchen to cook some pasta. The owner was away for the weekend but other residents of the guest house and friends were eating outside. We got invited to taste some of their food. Amazingly kind people. All the food tasted great.. I felt shy for eating so much that was offered to us. They kept asking me to taste the home made seafoods and local specialties. We got drinks and in the end they even cooked the spaghetti for us and we were playing cards together. Never met such welcoming , generous and accomodating people in my life. Funny was that the punishment for losing a game of Tongit kept becoming worse. In the last game the loser’s face was painted with charcoal. Luckily I got some help and one of the daughters lost thee game. I promised to not post the pictures online XD. After an exciting day we ended it by watching a zombie-movie in our traditional home.