I set my alarm clock the night before so I can wake up as early as four in the morning to do two things:
1. Charge our electronics and their extra batteries so we can take photos and videos of our entire day trip.
2. To witness sunrise at the sea area.
But the strong wind and pouring of rain somehow had spoiled that moment. At two in the morning, just four hours from the time that I had fallen into a deep sleep, I was awakened by the sound of rain and wind banging at our cottage which was made of light materials. And I just realized, that was constructed in the mangrove area, of course soft ground! I felt the room moving though like I was inside a ship. My bed mate however was not at all disturbed by it, James was sleeping soundly as well as my brother and his wife down stairs. Yes, it was a single room but it has a upper part which had been turned into a mini room inside a room. We are at La Entrada facing the wondrous Britania Group of Islands.
I have to get our electronics charged so I went down to the outlet area. I tried to go back to sleep and prayed too that the rain would stop so our island hopping tour on that day won't get spoiled.
So what happened that day? Let me share to you the things we did and the experience to be in the deep sea, like literally. Although, I am not sure if I had captured how kinda scary that part was, I guess I was more focused on how to survive in case the boat would sink while in the middle of getting through to the island.
No Sunrise Morning
I kept praying that the rain would stop that night when I was awakened by the thunder and strong drop of rain on the rooftop. That did stop but that didn't mean we already have a good weather. It was gloomy and dark that morning but James and I still managed to get up, get our rash guards on and walked to the bay area where the resort's island hopping boats were docked.
The surrounding was super dark, we have to use our mobile phone flashlight applications so to lighten up the way. It was a long wooden path on top of a mangrove filled shore. On the left side was another path routing over to the resort's activity area.
Got the tripod set up while dark, we even made time for some long exposure of their activity area plus the wooden path towards the end where the boats were placed. It rained after some time and then it stopped. It was already daytime yet there was no sign of sunrise. We have to give up and realize that there was no sunrise at all. We were okay with it since we have no control over the weather and the sun.
However, we were really glad we got good shots of the activity area.
Britania Island Hopping
This was the highlight of the day, well in fact it is the only thing we have to do within the day and upon day time when the rain stopped, I was able to see the islands in front of us. They look as though they are just reachable by hand. In fact, their white sand beaches can be seen from where we were standing!
Britania Group of Islands is comprised of 24 islands and islets in the crystal clear waters of Lianga bay. That day, we are only going to check out four islands, I know that's only a few compared to the 24 islands that it composes the group but it is also just some of the islands which has beaches, most of them are in fact just islands, just rocks. Also, only a few of these islands have residents on it. So let me start with the first to the last island that we visited.
• Hagonoy island
The first stop but certainly we had a scary sail towards the island. This was a little visible to the main land since it is hidden behind the Boslon Island. The sea looked very deep when we were on our way towards the island and I can feel the huge waves moving under our boat. And in addition to that, there's also the rain and wind adding up to the scariness of the sail.
Anyway, we arrived very safe, passed by some other boats which came from the island already. Now we went down and got really fascinated by the waves that surges into the shore.
The island has a few coconut trees which also had amazed me thinking that this island can actually be covered with sea water if the waves are huge but these trees are still alive, in fact standing tall amidst these waves.
It's a long one, with rocks at sides and how I wish the water was more calmer when we got there, it would have been a perfect spot for a picnic. We took sometime to tour around the island, it's sand by the way was really fine that when walking into the sand, your feet gets drowned into it. It's a really nice feeling, keeping my running phase slower than normal.
• Naked Island
This is a little version of the Hagonoy Island, just a sand bar in fact. It is way smaller compared to the Lumayag Sand Bar we had visited in Mabini, Bohol. The sad part was that the sea waves were too harsh that our boat won't be able to dock so we just passed by it.
Good thing the rain stopped so we had the chance to take photos while slowly moving pass the sand bar. Okay, nothing to really talk about this island anymore since we just passed it.
• Hiyor-hiyoran Island
We were suppose to get to Boslon Island first but then we were already hungry. That was passed seven, I guess almost eight in fact and our stomach worms were already complaining.
Gladly, the boat driver was really approachable and agreed we can go to Hiyor-hiyoran Island for breakfast! Everyone was happy when the boat rerouted to the island for food!
We docked at the right side of the island facing the coconut trees and the stalls of stuffs for sale. We could have gone to the other stalls but we were all good with the huge fish and squid which welcomed us after walking a bit from the shore. By the way, we opted for the huge fish which weight almost two kilograms, Php 300 per kilo including the cooking fees. We had it cooked in soup, grilled and eaten fresh Ceviche (kinilaw).
But aside from that, my brother also tried the Sea Urchins fresh from the distant seas. It was fascinating to see its spindles still moving here and there when it has its half body cut off!
Dining at the beach shore was a perfect spot to eat breakfast! The rest of the time, we had used for swimming and burning out the lots of food we have taken in. We also had talked with the local fishermen about their catch. I learned that the dark ink that the squid has is used to cure Goiter or the enlarged thyroid gland.
• Boslon Island
The last stop was at Boslon Island. We were all done with Hiyor-hoyoran and thought it is just time for us to go to the last island which is just a few minutes away.
However, we found a lot of boats docked there and there were numerous heads swimming and snorkeling around the area. We came closer to the shore but we thought it would be better if we can just stay at where we were situated at that time. But the boatmen had a better idea. The boat situated at a distant area where the sand is visible, a sign that it wasn't that deep in that part. We then had our time swimming with our life vests on so we can float. I believe that was indeed a better idea.
We finished swimming and snorkeling after I guess thirty minutes and finally we were over with the island hopping!
To Tandag
At past twelve, right after lunch we packed up and gathered in the van towards Tandag. Stayed at an affordable lodge which I will be blogging later together with all the lodges and the resorts we had stayed in this entire trip.
That night, we went to Tandag Boulevard and had dinner with some grilled food. Steven tried Balut for the very first time and actually liked it!
Cancelled Flight Due to Auring
The next day, we got ready for our flight back to Cebu however, it was already evident that the weather was not good, when reaching the airport, we were advised that the flight has been cancelled because of the low pressure. We don't have any choice but to find a way to be able to return to Cebu. The Cebu Pacific agent was not that helpful so we decided to go to Butuan since the flights there were not cancelled.
I called the Cebu Pacific hotline, took over five attempts to get to an agent. I won't forget the name of the agent whom I spoke with, it was Audrey. She was super helpful to the extent of offering me the connecting flight so we can reach Cebu the next day. I opted for the earliest flight to Manila and Cebu by noon time.
LuzViMinda in One Day
Boarded on a plane, we are moving from Butuan to Manila at seven in a rainy Saturday morning. Flight 5J 792 arrived in Manila at 8:35 in the morning. The aircraft was an A319 passengers aircraft and it is a huge one carrying more than hundred pax. The take off was actually smooth, the captain seemed experienced with the aircraft, reminds me of my boss who is a captain of the Boeing 787 in Belgium.
But although the take off was smooth, the plane was not free of turbulence, instead, we were experiencing great turbulence while on the air, causing us not to be able to stand and go to the lavatory for awhile.
The plane was manned by Second officer Masay, Captain Evaco and cabin crews Mj, Aiza and Sarah. We landed NAIA safely and ahead from the scheduled time.
There was no delay with our flight to Cebu so it was a great day, I won't forget the experience I had with this trip. I learned a lot about composing myself from all the stresses with flight cancellation and calling the airline.
That's it for now.
Check out the first part of our Surigao Tour:
Surigao Tour Day 1
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