Heaven in the Deep Sea

It was a rough ride from the dolphin watching site to Balicasag Island.

  The waves were big and scary.  I was holding onto my seat the entire ride.

 

And when we arrived at the island, we were told that our banca cannot dock on the island.  Instead, we have to rent smaller boats that would take us their and they weren’t cheap!  They were asking us for Php 150 each!  We didn’t expect this.  No one told us about this.

 

But we had no choice.  It’s either we swim to be able to reach the island, which is a big NO for me as I can’t swim, or ride with this small boats.

 

And so we transferred to these small boats, Chie and me on one boat, while Len & Bjorn on the other.  They first brought us to a protected marine sanctuary, a few meters from the shore.  Again, we had to rent coral beach shoes to protect our feet from sharp corals.  I think we paid hp 100 for a pair of those.  Kuya Mario provided us our snorkeling gears.

 

When I submerged my face, I was shocked by the wonderful sight of a well-preserved underwater ecosystem.

  Actually, this was my first time to snorkel, and I’m starting to regret why I did not try this with the many island beaches that I’ve been to.  Now I know why many are hooked in diving, or even just snorkeling.  It’s a whole new world down there!

 

I saw lots of sea creatures that I’m not familiar with.  I’m sure there were a variety of fish; I just don’t know their names.  Oh!  For sure, there’s Nemo!

 

We were so engrossed by the abundance and variety of fish and other marine life that we didn’t notice it was past lunch time, yet we didn’t mind.  Our stomachs were empty, but for sure our eyes were satisfied with what we saw.

 

As much as I would want to stay with Nemo and friends longer, we could already hear Chie’s loud churning stomach and so we got out of the water and directed our boatmen to bring us to the island for lunch.

 

Our boatmen told us that there’s only 1 restaurant in the island, found in the Balicasag Island Dive Resort, and that it’s quite expensive there, but told us not to worry as there are many carinderia along the seaside.

  So we chose one of the many available cottages there and ordered food.  This is not your typical Pinoy carinderia where there’s a selection of cooked food from steam trays; instead you would choose amongst the fresh catch of the day and tell them what kind of cooking you want.

 

We chose one big fish; half of it for sinigang (tamarind soup) and the other half, grilled, and grilled squid.  And when it was served, together with steamed rice, a liter of soda, and buko juice, then we realized then how starved we were as we cleared our table in a flash.

 

Fully recharged, we decided to explore the island.

 

Actually, the island was not fascinating.  The beach was just OK.  The sand is not that fine as compared to Alona.  There are big rocks along the shore.

 

I guess the highlight of this island is the marine sanctuary.

 

We were told that the other side of the island is the swimming area but we didn’t get the chance to see it because the waves were getting bigger and we still had to go to another island.