THE BEAUTIFUL ISLANDS OF THE VISAYAS, PHILIPPINES
This isn't the first time we travelled to Moalboal for a snorkelling and swimming trip. We did this in August together, yet my husband was too burnt from the Oslob trip that he could not swim anymore when we reached in Moalboal. We decided not to do a drive as he wants to experience traveling with all different means of transportation from one location to another. We decided to commute and go our way thru public transportation. We took Ceres bus to Moalboal, from the North Bus Terminal. There are trips there going to the South on schedule. We took the aircon bus and paid around 130 Pesos which is about 4 Singapore dollars. The trip is supposed to last around 3 hours but then due to traffic, it was a good 5 hours travel and arrived night time. It was still a comfortable ride. No bathroom stops though so you make sure you use the bathroom/toilet first before you get on the bus. When the bus reaches Carcar, there will be a few vendors who will get on the bus and sell you delicacies which you can buy at a reasonable price - like "Ampao" or Rice Crispies & some "Chicharon" or Pork Rinds. We decided to stay at the Sea Turtle Resort by Looc Saavedra area, made the booking thru BOOKING.COM since I am a Genius member, after having booked with them so many times. We picked a private resort, very secluded and very peaceful as we love places that are not crowded and serene. When we arrived, our room has been given to another due to our late arrival, which ended up more like a blessing, as we got upgraded to a much bigger room. The lady who manages the resort and we presume owns it, named Nenita, welcome us at the resort. We a nice apple drink as a welcome drink at their resto. She then guided us to our room and let us in. To our surprise and to my husbands' amazement, we saw the bed & there was a scorpion laying there! He got really excited, at first thinking it was some kind of a prank or just part of the bed cover design, but when we went closer, it was definitely a live scorpion. I won't give all the gory details how the owner got rid of it, Eric pleaded to keep it alive and release it in the wild, but then again, it might be dangerous for others too. In the end, we pretended we did not know how its life came to an end. Moving on to happier stories, it was nice relaxing night after having showered, we tried the hammock by our porch then went to the restaurant for late night dinner. That evening, we contacted a driver for the next day's island hopping. We negotiated to rent a whole boat for 2000 Pesos, which is around 65SGD to take us around the islands, to take us to the dive site to find Sea Turtles, to swim with the Sardines and to freedive around Pescador Island. Deal was done. We slept and woke up early next morning. We hired a driver who will drive us for the whole day to take us to the location of the boat. We went to Panagsama beach to meet the boat men. I snapped a few photos while we were waiting for the boat. Our first destination for the island hopping would be the Pescador Island. It is an island fish sanctuary with beautiful corals. We stayed there for about an hour to swim around and see beautiful fishes. After Pescador Island, we then went to dive for the well known SARDINES Dive where you will be free diving with thousands and thousands of sardines. I hesitated at first to do that because I have seen a lot of videos related to Sardines and Thresher sharks feeding on them. I have done this island hop a few times in the past but then again, every experience is different so I still went ahead and do it, especially this time I'm taking my Husband around with me. He enjoyed it so much. Last but not least, the boat crew brought us to the spot for sea Turtle Diving and to enjoy the beautiful corals. This time, I stayed on the boat while my Husband went on for his quest to find a Sea Turte.
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