Bohol Day 2: Island Hopping + Panglao Tour

June 20, Friday marks the second day of our First Anniversary and very first couple trip in Bohol! I was generally a bit worried for this day since we have the beach plans set and according to my initial check on weather forecast, it would be cloudy with a few showers!

But of course, I still wanted to be hopeful especially that we were finally well-rested! One thing that Ruel and I really consider when we go on vacation is that we must allot enough time to rest, recover and sleep!

We had to wake up around at 5:30 AM so we can have our breakfast before the boat man picks us up at 6:00 AM. Our driver actually suggested to just have our breakfast packed and be brought to the boat so we can start with our activities early but we decided otherwise since it's breakfast buffet and we want to make the most out of it.

The thing about the breakfast buffet is that the hotel restaurant served very few food to choose from. They only have one choice of fruit, a soup, plain rice, fried rice, scrambled eggs, pancit, tuna and then bread with butter and jelly. But we decided to make do with it through the quantity of food we ate.

It was already past 6:00 AM when we finally met with the boat man. Unfortunately due to the strong waves, he was not able to pick us up through the boat in our hotel so we had to ride with him on his motor and travel by land to Alona Beach where his boat was waiting.

When I saw that we really were going to ride a motorbike, I did not know how to react because I haven't ridden in one before, let alone be squeezed in with 2 more people on a vehicle that's supposed to be ridden by only 2 people (this is actually a normal thing in Bohol wherein even up to 5 people ride a motorcycle). It was definitely a good thing we decided to eat breakfast already since there would be no room to place any extra baggage.

But I did enjoy the little and unexpected motorbike ride! And I was very excited to start our water adventure together.

MORNING ACTIVITY: ISLAND HOPPING

When we arrived at the Alona Beach, we were met by our motorbiker's brother who went with us to our tour. After walking a few meters into the water, we were finally able to ride the boat.

Dolphins Watching

The travel took a while to our destination where we were to watch dolphins. We were told that it was highly advisable to start the activities early since the dolphins usually disappear around after 7:30 AM since they do not like the heat.

At first, we were having a hard time looking for dolphins. But when we finally did, we got really excited!

It was really fun to watch them out on the ocean and not holed up inside an aquarium. They are not used to people because they are considered "wild" so we had to chase them around but that's the great part: We got to see how dolphins really live.

Some of them like to just swim in groups while some like to jump and maybe to show off.

Balicasag Island

After our dolphins watching, we finally proceeded to Balicasag Island where we went the typical snorkeling activity in any beach.

I was very surprised with how beautiful the water of Bohol is! I could really say the Philippines has the most beautiful beaches in the world!

For the snorkeling activity, we had to ride a really smaller boat similar to those ridden by fishermen. We were provided with snorkeling gears as part of our package but we were advised to rent aqua boots to avoid getting cut.

Snorkeling at Balicasag Island was really fun for me! I was glad we rented the boots cause we needed to do a lot of stepping on the corals to stand up and they are kind of pointy and sharp.

The waves were also a bit strong even to the locals so we could not really control our bodies in the water especially with the life vest.

But it was really beautiful underneath! I got to see a lot of beautiful corals with different kinds of fishes swimming around with me! We did not have bread with us but it was okay since we still got to enjoy the view.

It was almost similar to the view that divers get but I was not able to go deeper because I had on a snorkeling set and I wasn't able to bring my goggles.

Virgin Island

After our snorkeling activity, we headed to our next stop which was the Virgin Island.

Unfortunately, the island have became a private property and the owner decided to close it from the public just a week before our Bohol trip. So all tourists were only brought to a smaller nearby island which did look like a virgin island as well.

Because of this, we were not able to go through with our original plan to swim at the island since it's not something you can do at the small island we were brought to. So we decided to make the most out of it by walking around while holding hands.

We spotted a starfish and was amazed to find one so nearby.

There were also vendors in the island and we thought of having a quick snack of banana-que and a really huge buko juice. The price of the food was more expensive than the usual but we still went with them.We were so full afterwards like we just had a huge meal.

Going Home

After some time, we finally decided to go back. The travel back to Alona Beach was somehow quicker than when we started with our activity.

Once our boatman dropped us off to Alona Beach, we spotted two starfishes, er, getting jiggy. LOL.

AFTERNOON ACTIVITY: PANGLAO ISLAND TOUR

Originally, the Panglao Island tour was not part of our plan when we came to Bohol. But our driver kept insisting for us to proceed with it. I do not want to rant about this small incident but somewhat, his persistence for us to continue this activity kind of ruined our day.

That evening on our first day, we never really confirmed to proceed with it because we were unsure if we will still have the energy to do this after our island hopping. But we were not really pleased with how he handled everything especially on how he communicated with our boatman.

Anyway, we decided to go through it since our afternoon was vacant.

Bohol Bee Farm

Our first stop for that morning is at the Bohol Bee Farm. They happened to be popular with their healthy and organic products such as bread, spreads, tea, coffee, wines and many more.

The Bohol Bee Farm is actually a hotel itself and it was really nice though I wasn't able to take pictures around. Next time, I plan to stay at this hotel when we get to visit Bohol again (hopefully with the family!).

They have free tastes for most of their products and it was fun trying out everything for free.

What tourists love to buy from them is their home made ice cream with unusual flavors.

Ruel and I decided to try out malunggay and avocado flavors and they're pretty good! Well, Ruel did not like the malunggay flavor that much.

Hinagdanan Cave

When I came to this cave, I was expecting it to be the kind of cave that will require us to do trekking.

But it turns out that the cave is actually already sort of artificial already.

Inside the cave was a body of water and according to the local guide, it's clean and people can swim there. I am a bit worried about the smell though.

According to the local guide who tries to keep us laughing with his jokes, "hinagdanan" actually means "ladder" and the cave was discovered and entered through a ladder on the small opening where that tiny light was coming from.

Nova Shell Museum

The Shell Museum previews the different shell collections of Mr. Quirino Hora, who is now known internationally for this hobby of his. The great story about this is this hobby has turned into his career and he's earning bucks from it!

I'm not really much of a fan of shells but I enjoyed looking at the many varieties of shells in just one place! The stories of the shells were interesting to hear.

There were very small shells that you'd think were just some parts of a coral and really huge ones that can pass as hard sofa!

Some are commonly found while some are rare. I guess this is normal for collections.

Punta Cruz Tower

One of those infrastructures that also got destructed by the earthquake was this historical tower. The watchtower was used as a lookout for pirates.

Nearby the watchtower stood the Daius Church which is surprisingly still standing.

While having our pictures taken by the driver, he told us a sort of creepy story that happened during the earthquake.

In one of the churches, there was an ongoing funeral when the tremor started to happen. It resulted to the coffin getting buried along with other bodies who were in the funeral as well. It took them days to look for the bodies. Pretty creepy.

Alona Beach

The last stop was at Bohol's famous Alona Beach. The story from our guide was that the said beach has the sand of Boracay and water of Palawan.

Checking the beach, it somewhat already looked like Boracay but the area was small. The sand was also nice but only the shallow part can be enjoyed because you'd end up stepping on weeds when you try to go farther.

We swam a bit but we were not able to take pictures because my phone was already acting up.

Overall, the beach was okay but it was a bit underwhelming to me probably because I've been to Boracay and Coron, Palawan and those were, I'm sorry to say, definitely incomparable to this small beach.

Going Home

On our way back to our resort, we opted to buy food outside the resort to save money. Luckily, there was a store that sells lechon manok similar to Andok's/Baliwag/Chooks. 

At the resort, we planned to have dinner outside the room to enjoy the view but thr mosquitos were pestering us. So we decided to set up the table inside the room and have our little dinner date there while watching TV. Chicken was not that good but we were so hungry. We also enjoyed each other's company.

Afterwards, we spent our time swimming at the pool and eventually, we rested early cause we got exhausted from our activities for the day.

I just could not believe then that it was already the end of our second day and we were about to really go home and end our Bohol escapade.