Bohol: eilandhoppen

After our lunch, we said goodbye to Giselle and our driver drove us to Moalboal. We went to the starting point, which is like in the town centre, where we registered ourselves with name, age, nationality, and attended a short briefing of the rules. We also paid 800 pesos for Go Pro service by our boat guide for the 3h island hopping tour. After which we went on a boat to Pescador Island (that took about 20mins) to see numerous different types of fishes! They were very beautiful and our guide dived very deep to help us video the fishes swimming. He also videoed us trying to dive along with the fishes. We literally found Nemo there ????. We spent 30mins there before moving on to near the shore (that took about 20mins) to see the sardines. They were numerous and swam in packs. I tried to swim together with them but they will dodge humans very fast. Our last stop was the sea turtles, which were a 5mins swim across the shore only. It was there where the guide dived with me to video me close up with the turtle. Luckily, the turtle was very close to shore so we did not need to dive in deep. Once all these were done, we rode back to the starting port, and then the locals help us transfer the photos and videos from the Go Pro to our phones! Safety: Wear the life-vests on board, you can choose to take out while in the water watching the fishes so as to dive deeper. Snorkelling gear with breathing pipe is provided too for free. However flippers come at additional cost of 100 pesos, which we did not get as we had Decathlon wet shoes on and they were good enough to swim. Be warned, the boat engine is LOUD. If it rains at your period, the boat captain may go back on shore earlier for everyone’s safety, and there’s no refund. Rules: Don’t touch the fishes and sea turtle. Don’t go hunt the fishes. Don’t step on the sea bed and disturb the sediment and corals. Don’t take dead fishes or plants from the sea. Transportation: Some tuktuk bikes might be willing to go to Moalboal from Cebu City/ other cities nearby. Otherwise private car is recommended!

The guide met me at hotel and took me to the boat to meet the crew which was great. The boat driver did not seem to speak English which had been stated in the booking - luckily the other passengers all spoke English. The tour I booked stated bottled water was included, however this was not the case. No water was offered at any pointincluding at lunch, and I had to pay for a drink at one of the islands we stopped at. I had brought one small bottle of water which was lucky. The snorkelling and dolphin watching was amazing, and the guide in the canoe even dove under to get close up photos of turtles on my camera for me. The lunch on the sandbar at Virgin Island was good - The setup was all in the water so we were sitting up to our waist in water eating freshly cooked seafood and rice.