Karsten and I grabbed an excellent breakfast at a place he had found. For PHP200, we had a full buffet breakfast for the same price as a simple omelette and toast at most other places. Despite the pricey rooms, it seemed to be the preferred accommodation of the few mainland Chinese in town.
All the Danes had elected to do a cycle trip (which turned out to be very arduous). On the other hand, I had an idyllic day planned with snorkelling and island hopping. These island hopping around El Nido are packaged into combinations called Tours A, B, C and D. I had booked myself on Tour A as it was the cheapest and slightly shorter (0900 – 1700, which should be long enough I thought).
The boat was a typical Filipino outrigger and four out of the 10 passengers were expats from China (including Hong Kong).
- Our first stop was called Small Lagoon. As all boats on the very popular Tour A started about the same time, we all more or less arrived in convoy here. There must have been about 20 boats which detracted from the experience. We swam through a small gap into a large swimming pool-like enclosure which led into a second one. There was not much fish to see but the water was lovely.
- Second stop was a nice beach where we had a BBQ lunch comprising of fish and pork chops. This was accompanied by a salad and plenty of fruit including mangoes. Definitely the best meal in the Philippines so far!
- Third was Hidden Lagoon where walked in the deep water before crawling through a small opening into a hidden lagoon (of course). The nearby beach was too windy and we were sandblasted, so we left pretty promptly.
- After cruising around very pretty areas resembling Halong Bay (but with clean water) we anchored for a final snorkel. Again there wasn’t much life to sea in the water.
Overall, it was an excellent and a very enjoyable day of cruising and swimming. I had been warned to treat it as an outing rather than a snorkelling trip; with that in mind I wasn’t disappointed.
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- Tricycles are common in Palawan.
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- El Nido beach looking a bit busier than yesterday evening as all the tour boats get ready to go.
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- El Nido beach looking a bit busier than yesterday evening as all the tour boats get ready to go.
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- Too many boats at Small Lagoon.
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- Not Mulu Pinnacles but the islands near El Nido.
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- Manouvering ourselves out of the crowd.
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- Our lovely lunch spot.
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- View from our lovely lunch spot.
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- Hidden lagoon is hidden somewhere here.
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- Like Halong Bay but clean!
I had dinner with the Danish group again. After putting our orders in at the resto, we dropped by a dive shop to organise ourselves for diving. Even though they had done their plans (boat and divemaster allocation) for tomorrow, they cheerfully accommodated us.
We realised we had left it a bit late but it couldn’t be helped as we all had a full day of activities. They kindly reorganised everything and we were very grateful for taking us in.