April 10,

We booked a boat tour today! So up and about. We ate Muesli, yogurt with chocolate milk. We don’t have a fridge so Jeff went to a close by local place this morning for the yogurt and milk. They only had a small chocolate, so it was like chocolate covered berries! Anyway, we got picked up by a “trike” as the local tuk-tuk transport is called. We arrived at the check-in spot and were escorted by a man, who called himself “John”, and his son, to the beach and a small group of people. He asked if we wanted snorkel stuff, and took Jeff to get it. Jeff flagged me and I joined to try on some fins. (The rental for the snorkel stuff cost us extra). We re-joined the group, waited for our boat – Princesa Flor – and then we all wade out and board. Our “bangka” boat, as it is called in the Philippines, is a pale green color with the set-up of a double outrigger. There are 17 passengers, and 5 crew counting John’s son. I count the boy because he drove the boat some and did well! On our way out John become a photographer and took pictures of everyone individually or how you wanted on the front of the boat.

The tour we booked is Tour D. Every tour group here in El Nido (and there are several of them) books the same four tour packages – A, B, C, D. We booked the tour through our lodge, Alfa Lodge and paid them the 3,600 PHP ($63.02). [This was both our tour fee with the 400 PHP ($7) each – fee for the “Eco-Tourism Development Fee”- which is good for five days.] Our snorkels, a mask (I still have mine) and fins cost us 550 PHP ($9.63). We also did two Kayak rentals for total of 600 PHP ($10.50). Jeff said they nickel and dimed us. Anyway, the total was 4,750 PHP ($83.14)!!! Now about the tour! 😂🤣

It was five stops: two lagoons, and three beaches. The first stop was Cadlao Lagoon on Cadlao Island. We got in our first Kayak rental here and paddled around with at least four other boats worth of groups. It was a lot of Kayaks! But it was great to get up close to the jagged formations of rock that make up the islands. Some of the formation layering seemed to be iron based with of course limestone. The water is beautiful, greens and blues, with great visibility to the sea floor. We saw a few baby fish and coral. Looks like it would be good diving – we’ll have to check it out. We did get out at the beach here and John became photographer again. He had us sit on a rock in the water. We got back into the Kayak and paddled about a little more. Our allotted time was up and we re-boarded the Princesa Flor.

The bangka moved on to the next stop, #2, Small Lagoon, on Miniloc Island. Jeff and I boarded another Kayak (the Kayaks are left at each place and reused by different boats). Jeff found the entry to get us into the Small Lagoon area. We were first of our boat to find it, but there were others from the other boats. In this lagoon we noticed wooden or bamboo ladders going to varying heights of platforms. For jumping into the water? Then we wondered if this was for the cliff-diving event that is supposed to occur here in a day or two?? Questions? We saw John and I asked him about them…Answer! It was for the RedBull Cliff-diving event! Cool, but there is no way to be here to watch. It will just be a televised event. Shucks! We were hoping to see some live. Oh well!

We existed the hidden Small Lagoon and went to the adjacent beach. Here we were all served up lunch: a whole Tuna; a platter full of shrimp; a platter full of whole crabs, halved; a platter of noodles with cabbage, red bell pepper; a large bowl Adobo Chicken; a larger bowl of rice; salad platter of cucumber, tomato, onion; and fruit platters of pineapple, yellow watermelon, and bananas. It was quite the spread! I had my first half of a crab, since a guy from Florida showed me what to do. He, along with his brother (also on the tour, with his wife on their honeymoon) was born in Philippines, but their families moved to US when they were little. The other passengers: a family (also of Filipino heritage) three adults and two children from San Francisco with another adult relation who still lives here; a Polish couple, from Gdansk; two Kiwi sisters; and two other young ladies (don’t know where they were from). Anyway, once we finished we loaded back up on Princesa Flor and moved on.

Third, four, and fifth stop were snorkeling for us.🤿  They were Helicopter Beach, Bukul Beach, and Paradise Beach. These three ran together for me and the order may not be right. The snorkeling was pretty good and helped us decide to go diving. We saw many baby fish and different kinds of fish; couple of puffer fish; large blue leggy starfish; and also some good coral. Good adventure.

We loaded up for the last time onto the bangka at 1600, and headed back to El Nido city. We all unloaded onto the beach, saying goodbyes and Jeff tipped John 200 PHP. We returned our snorkel stuff, and hired a trike to get back to our lodge, which cost 100 PHP… So total adventure outing was 5,050 PHP or $88.66!

We cleaned up and went to the beach for sunset and found a local shop/cafe. We shared a chicken sandwich and each had an order of sweet potato fries while watching God’s brilliant painting of the end of our blessed day!!!