The Philippines: the Awesome Boat Adventure

While planning this trip, we really looked for that "one thing" that would kind of anchor our plans. The Philippines has so much to offer, so much diversity, so many islands, that it was tough to narrow our choices. One of the things we love to do when we are abroad is to do some sort of thing that kind of gets us "in" to the country. We like to spend time with the people there somehow in way that is other than just interacting with the hotel and restaurant staff. It isn't always easy to find. Sure, you can easily meet people along the way. But actually spending time with them over a period of time, isn't always easy to arrange.

When we read about the possiblity of chartering a local-style boat with a local crew for a few days of island hopping, we knew this was exactly what we were looking for. So we pretty much built our trip around this one excursion.

And we weren't disappointed.

I'd had email dialogue with our captain, Betan, for a few months before we arrived, so we sorted out the major details: the dates and the price. And I knew he'd had many other very happy passengers in the past. But other than that, we didn't really know specifically what we were in for.

He came out to our hotel a few days before the trip so that we could talk about the details. That is when we got the first glimpse (other than pictures) of what would be our home for 5 days:



He asked about the kinds of things we wanted to see, what time we wanted to leave in the morning, the kinds of foods we liked to eat, oh...and whether or not it was ok if they brought live chickens aboard! It seems that on past trips, he'd gotten stuck bringing chickens planning on eating them in the later days of the voyage but then the guests would get attached to the chickens and insist that their life be spared leaving Betan with few options of things to feed his guests! He wanted to gauge whether we were likely to grant a stay of execution to our feathered friends. You can guess how we answered:



In addition to Betan, our crew consisted of Ronald, and also Liza, Betan's wife. Soren absolutely adored her.



And with good reason. She was very sweet, and a lot of fun.



She was awesome at fishing. In fact, everytime we stopped the boat, Soren would say to Liza "this looks like a perfect spot for fishing."



And she was generally just a lot of fun to play with.





We headed out on the first day, just in awe of the incredible beauty all around us.



This is Coron Island. I never did get an explanation of why it is shaped like that. But in the end it didn't matter. We were just mesmerized looking at it.



I have countless photos of incredible views, gorgeous water, and stunning sunsets. It was such an idyllic experience. More details coming tomorrow...