Day 2. El Nido Island Hopping Tour A

Before the tour

To prepare for the trip, I packed our water bottles, sunblock, cash, and my cell phone in the dry bag. I also packed change of clothes, which later turned out to be useless as there was no place to change. We have another bag for the masks and snorkels.

We got up at 6:50am, put on our swimsuit, rush guards, and water shoes. We had a nice breakfast at the hotel, and waited at the lobby at 8am. 

There was an orange tabby cat outside of the hotel, and we went to pet the cat. The cat really liked Claire. The hotel staff also pet the cat and told us that they used to have four cats, the big chow chow dog killed three cats. This cat survived with an eye injury, and only came here when the chow chow was away. The dog was so friendly to Claire yesterday, but apparently it was really hostile to cats.

Our tour guide came at  8:40 and we walked to Stingray Travel and Tours. We picked up two towels, and put them in the dry bag. A young German couple came later. The guide then walked with us to the dock.

Get on the boat

There were so many boats at the dock. They connected the boats head-to-tail, so that we could board and walk through two other boats before getting on our own tour boat, the Amihan. Another way to get to the boat was using kayaks. Boat crew members waded in waters to pull kayaks to transfer people from the beach to the boat. For our boat, a group of 6 adults and 3 kids arrived in two kayaks. You can see the "shuttle kayak" on the photo below.

The tour started after 9am when all guests were onboard. The crew explained to us that there would be five stops for the tour.

7 Commando Beach

Our first stop was 7 commando beach. There were coconut trees behind the beach. The water was warm and clear. A great place to relax. 


Big Lagoon

This was my favorite stop of the tour. We rented a kayak for 300 PHP to paddle from the boat to the lagoon. I was a bit worried about kayak through the ocean waves, but we made it easily. Once we got to the island, we had to pull the kayak because it was low tide. Then we reached a beautiful lagoon surrounded by limestone mountains. The lagoon was huge, so even though there were people from many boats, you can still feel extreme serenity.   



Lunch Place

We went to an island for lunch. There were several boats there already, so we had to dock a bit far to the beach. The crew asked us whether it was ok to have lunch on the boat. We all happily agreed that it was a good idea.  

Lunch was delicious. We had rice, noodle, chicken, fish, cucumber salad, and cooked veggie. There were also fruits. 


There was a guy on a small kayak selling ice cream and coconut. I bought a coconut. Claire enjoyed the coconut water. I tried a bit and it was extremely fresh. After we finished the water, our guide cut the coconut and gave me a spoon so that I could eat the meat. It was really great. 

A Snorkel Place

This was Claire's favorite stop of the tour. We stopped at a place marked by a 5-gallon water bottle floating as a buoy. We just jumped into the water and there were lots of fishes. The crew threw some rice to the water and the fishes all came together. Being a weak swimmer, I did not feel comfortable in the ocean without fins, so I snorkeled a little bit and waited on the boat. Claire snorkeled for a long time and really enjoyed it.


Secret Lagoon

We needed to swim 15 meters in the ocean to get to a small hole at the base of a rock wall. Claire went ahead. Since I could not swim in the ocean, I asked a boat crew member for help and he held my hands to swim there. There were some beautiful bright blue fishes in the ocean but I was too scared to enjoy. 

Once we got to the hole, Claire held my hands so that I could stand on the rocks. Water shoes were essential here because the rocks were sharp, and the waves made it difficult to keep a balance. 

We then swam through the little hole and inside it was a lagoon.

The lagoon was surrounded by rocks on all sides. You can see the sky from the opening. It reminded me of the Chinese saying of a frog living in a well believed that the sky was a small circle. The lagoon was not big and packed with people. We all held on to the rocks on the side.

Secret Lagoon was the last stop. After this we went back. 

Dinner

We had dinner at the DRYFT Fish restaurant. I had tuna steak tacos and sweet & spicy squid bowl. Claire had pork dumplings and kimchi tofu bowl. All of them were great.












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