My last post left off with Bulog Island, our first stop on the Island Escapade Tour in Coron, the Philippines! Time for part 2. Our 2nd island/stop was just a 10 minute ride to the location of the incredible swinging tree and another amazing beach, here's to our lunch stop for the day:
Cocoa Beach
Picnic tables, coconuts for sale, beach volleyball, hammocks, and most importantly: SWINGS This beach may not have been the most scenic but it was still great to hang out on the swings and not to mention eat another fantastic lunch. (pretty much the same as the day before minus the clams)
Pulling in over the crystal clear water to the land of palm trees
Sitting in the shade at our group's huge picnic table
Excuse the sunburned face, but look at all that fooooodddddd!
Selfie in transit to our 3rd and final stop of the day:
Malcapuya Island
Our favorite and last stop of the day, this beach had the best and largest sandy beach, while still having coral and places to snorkel within range. There were more beautiful palm trees, the perfect depth of water, and the views from the beach of surrounding islands wasn't too bad either. The boats park on a different side of the island, meaning you have a short 5 minute sandy walk to the actual beach (nothing that can't easily be done in flip flops) There's also little canoe boat men that for 100 pisos (about $2) you can hold onto as they pull you along over all the best coral spots to snorkel. This takes roughly 30 minutes and since only one of us brought goggles this day, we didn't opt in for that but we heard it was really beautiful. Instead we spent our hour or so lounging in the shallow water and meandering amidst the palms. All in all, a great beach to visit if you have time when visiting Coron.
More of the perfect temperature water. Both my friend and I agreed we liked this place better than anywhere we'd been in the Caribbean.
Exploring the shady palms
The secret beach (that was a bit more rocky so no one was swimming at it)
Looking down the very long, sandy beach!
The perspective looking back.
Walking back to where our boat was parked
On the way back we again had to travel around 80 minutes, this time taking a detour around part of an island and through waters so shallow, they had to kill the engines for part of it. As we glided through the shallow water, Tippe and I were lucky enough to be on the front of the boat where you could look down and there were DOZENS of giant star fish! They ranged in size but the biggest we saw must have been 10in x 10 in. It was a really cool spot to see and really ended the day on a high note... which was good since the ride back was bumpy, windy, and VERY wet. We were soaked by waves coming up and over the box, But it was worth it to see the star fish better than anyone else on the boat. So fair warning, I recommend sitting on the front if you can but you're more likely to get wet from waves and sunburned from sun exposure. Plan accordingly.
Views of the amazing rocky landscape found all over Coron Island.
A cool Island shape that very much reminded me of Moana.
Our boat dropped us off around 5:30 and we headed to our hotel to try to wash all the salt water from 2 days out of our hair. (it was a process for me, I probably conditioned at least 3 times.) Once we were all cleaned up, we headed back out our favorite restaurant, Island Boys Grill, for some more bbq pork. We had to be pretty economical with our dinner as both of us were running out of cash fast and the ATMs in rural towns didn't like our debit cards, but I still splurged on two sticks this time. This restaurant's BBQ was the best of the entire trip by far, maybe that I've ever had. Anyways the sun had already set on our walk over so we missed any opportunity to hike Tapyas for a sunset but I don't think we'd have much energy after the long boating days to do it anyways. We headed back to the hotel, packed up our stuff, and prepared for an early morning rising to get back to the airport and move onto our next island.
Day 3 Costs
Banana Bread and drink for breakfast $4.75 Island Escapade Tour- $25 Island Boy Grill again for Dinner- $3.60
Lodging
Luis Bay Lodge - $12.50 pp