December 31 was gorgeous on Panglao, so we spent the whole day on the beach. It was really nice to be just lazy and drink cocktails all day long.
In the evening, we decided to go to dinner a bit later than usual, so that we can stay there all the way till midnight and celebrate the coming of 2015 on the beach. We actually didn't expect much after the last years New Year's Eve in Kathmandu.
At 10:30 pm there was still not much going on.
However, closer to midnight it started to get busier and busier. Until at some point the whole stretch of the beach was filled with people - tourists and locals. The larger resorts were preparing fireworks and everybody got excited.
Then, the moment came: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, ... And the whole island exploded with fireworks :-)
Happy New Year 2015!!!
We stayed on the beach, drinking my favorite Mango Daiquiri.
The next day we had to decide if we will be going to another island - Palawan. We were planning to do so, but after informing about the tickets, it turned out that the cheap ones were all sold out and the ones left were somewhere around 250 euros (!) per person. So we decided to stay and do some island hoping in the area.
The two nearest ones were Balicasag, where we could do some snorkeling on the coral reefs surrounding the island, and the Virgin Island, which we had no info about.
The island hoping usually starts just before 6 am, with the boat leaving from Panglao towards Balicasag. On the way, the tourists are promised to see the dolphins.
When we started sailing away the sun was just coming up.
The boat can be either hired privately or you can join a group. Ours was 6 people, really fun guys - two Australians and a French couple.
At first, everything was going great and we were enjoying the views of Panglao from the water.
The boat owner said that once we will see Balicasag, we should watch out for the dolphins.
There were other boats in the area, and when you could see them going to the same spot all at once, that meant that some dolphins were spotted there.
We were all excited to get there, and everybody had their cameras out and ready, when... the boat's motor just stopped became really silent. At first, we thought that the boat owner switched it off on purpose not to scare the dolphins away, but then we saw his face and it was clear - we will not be seeing any dolphins any time soon.
After several hopeless attempts to start the motor running, he gave up and tried to get someone to tow us to the island.
About 15 minutes later we were all roped up and being towed away.
The boat owner said that he will try to fix the motor while we will be snorkeling. We could already see Balicasag on the horizon.
It's a very small oval shaped island just 2 kilometers in diameter, but it has one of the most beautiful reefs around it, making the place a very popular tourist spot. Because we were towed, we got to the island as one of the last. We could already see the crowd of people snorkeling a bit further away.
The snorkeling was awesome, we've never done it before and we loved it very much. The reefs were sooo full of all kind of different fishes and corrals and turtles. Too bad we didn't have the underwater camera with us for the pics!
Anyway, now that we both became big fans of snorkeling, I am sure will have some nice underwater photos to share in the near future.
All together we snorkeled for about an hour, until we both started to get dizzy, so we went back to the island.
At this point the boat owner told us the good news about being able to fix the engine and that we could be on our way to the Virgin Island.
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| Click on the pic to see large photos |
At 10:30 pm there was still not much going on.
Then, the moment came: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, ... And the whole island exploded with fireworks :-)
The next day we had to decide if we will be going to another island - Palawan. We were planning to do so, but after informing about the tickets, it turned out that the cheap ones were all sold out and the ones left were somewhere around 250 euros (!) per person. So we decided to stay and do some island hoping in the area.
The two nearest ones were Balicasag, where we could do some snorkeling on the coral reefs surrounding the island, and the Virgin Island, which we had no info about.
The island hoping usually starts just before 6 am, with the boat leaving from Panglao towards Balicasag. On the way, the tourists are promised to see the dolphins.
When we started sailing away the sun was just coming up.
There were other boats in the area, and when you could see them going to the same spot all at once, that meant that some dolphins were spotted there.
After several hopeless attempts to start the motor running, he gave up and tried to get someone to tow us to the island.
About 15 minutes later we were all roped up and being towed away.
The snorkeling was awesome, we've never done it before and we loved it very much. The reefs were sooo full of all kind of different fishes and corrals and turtles. Too bad we didn't have the underwater camera with us for the pics!
Anyway, now that we both became big fans of snorkeling, I am sure will have some nice underwater photos to share in the near future.
All together we snorkeled for about an hour, until we both started to get dizzy, so we went back to the island.
At this point the boat owner told us the good news about being able to fix the engine and that we could be on our way to the Virgin Island.
The Virgin island turned out to be stretch of white sand middle in the ocean with no vegetation but a huge number of starfish and sea hedgehogs in the shallow water.
We so many stars but Dima refused to pick them up, except for this one :-)
Because the waters are so shallow, it's difficult to get to and from the island without getting stuck on a shoal. Luckily, most of the locals know their way around the dangerous places and it's fun to see all boats lined up and swirling one after the other.
On the way back it started to rain and the waves became really high, so much that I was getting seasick. But once we got closer to Panglao, the weather turned nice again and by the time we docked, it was perfectly sunny.
Spending the rest of the afternoon on the beach was a perfect ending to a busy day.
Because we decided not to go to Palawan, we spent the rest of the week here - swimming, walking, biking, and just enjoying the holidays. To be totally honest, we did get quite bored at the end and were happy when it was time to go back to Cebu City and then to take the flight to our final destination of the trip - Shanghai, China.
Cheers!
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