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Under the Apo Island Sun

Apo Island Travel Blog › entry 1 of 6 › view all entries

I organized a trip for me and my friends to Apo Island, Dumaguete and Bais City in Negros Oriental---partly to celebrate my brother's birthday, and partly to really 'vacate' my work station even for a few days. This has been one of the greatest trips, ever...

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Under the Apo Island Sun

October 3, 2008

I love early morning flights because I usually can't sleep at night on the eve of my trips. This was no different. I woke up at 4AM to get ready for an hour plane ride to Dumaguete City (Our flight was at 7AM). I have wanted to go this place for a long time, not really knowing what it offers. I heard a few good things, but I had no superb expectations. It was a short flight. The gag show featured on the plane kept me laughing. It was a pretty good trip, considering we paid only less than thousand pesos for a roundtrip ticket. The airport in Manila was neat, huge, and breatheable. We were served coffee and snacks in the short flight. A few more blinks later, we touched down Dumaguete. At the airport, the mighty Glen, who was the 'pilot' of the Liberty Resort 'truck' greeted us and led us to a 40-minute roadtrip to Zamboangita, the takeoff point for another 45 minute ride to Apo Island.

approaching the island

We reached the island at about half past 10. We surveyed the resort, ordered lunch to fill our stomachs and got ready for the rest of the hectic day. Everybody else had omelette. I decided to try their homemade bread with chicken and mangoes. It was refreshing. I would have loved to have mango shake under that Apo Island Sun, but the electricity had been shut. Apparently, the generator powers the whole resort 3 hours in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening. It would have been really cool too, to spend the night there without power, but our three day sched had so much in it, we could not skip a beat.

After lunch, we went to the marine sanctuary, and were briefed by the 'bantay dagat' abouth the do's and dont's in the area. While others swam away from the shore, the fearful me tried luck by the shore, dipped my head in the water, and marveled at the living creatures of the sea.

The water was only about 3 feet, and already the parrot, angel, jack and clown fish greeted me welcome. I hated myself for being pathetically fearful of the water. When I felt I had ingested enough and seen much to say I have done it, I moved back to the land, and waited for everyone. All Saints' Pure Shores was really the perfect backgroud music. I was happy I got to download music suitable to the theme of the trip.

On our way back to camp (Liberty Resort), where we stored our gigantic backpacks filled with grocer items, clothes and backpackin 'must haves', we passed by the souvenir shop of one of the known tribal artists of Negros.

dark clouds hid the sun

We bought a few good stuff to remember this trip by. I could have bought a few larger art pieces if I had enough room in my bag, but I was happy with my neckpiece. 80 pesos for that dramatically put together piece was a great bargain.

It was already 4PM, and the beautiful sunny weather was already about to be dimmed by dark clouds. The mountains close by were covered by these clouds--an unfortunate event that I did not see coming. We were about to head on back to the city, but it looked like the sky was prepared to shower us with rain. And it really did. There were 7 of us in a small boat, and 8 in the other bigger boat which fortunately had a little roof and higher seats. I was already frantic. The rain was rough, and the waves were already quite bumpy---according to my standards... I asked to go back, although my companions wanted to head on.

leaving the island like this?

To me, what seemed to be a really answered prayer was that they asked us to switch to another boat. Thank God, it was a bigger boat. It was still raining, but not as much as it did 15 minutes ago. I wrapped myself in a hooded jacket and in a thick towel to psyche myself. I thought I could not go on for another 45 minutes in the sea. I prayed on until we reached the shore.

There was no prettier sight at that time than when the skies began to clear, the mountains began to appear and the sun's rays lit again. What a phewic first day it really was.

We all just laughed about it when we got back from Zamboangita. Our friends from the other boat had no idea what had happened to me in the smaller boat. They laughed with me when they did.

It was pathetic, but at least now I can laugh about it. Yeah, it was a good weather, gone bad. This was just the first day.

The next day was more exciting... and much more pleasant....

7 comments

6 smiles

issa005 says:

diving is good in apo... i didn't try it though, water yata ang sinus ko eh... you can check out www.apoisland .com for more info.. mura lang yung accommodation. let me know if you want to go there, i can give you the number of liberty, the owner of the liberty lodge... she's very nice

Posted on: Nov 18, 2008