Our onward journey went via Bangkok. We spent the 2 Christmas holidays there and then flew on to our next exciting country: the Philippines.
Unfortunately, right on Christmas Day I had come down with a bad cold and had to get through our rather complicated flights to the island of Cebu while ill. We had picked Cebu as our starting island (out of a total of 7,641 (!!) Philippine islands) because it supposedly has lots of great snorkelling spots and fantastic beaches. We were really curious about all the new impressions and how things would differ here from the rest of Southeast Asia. After the late flight we had to spend a night in Cebu City before we could finally set off by taxi to our first snorkelling destination, Moalboal. The flights and rides unfortunately didn't do my condition much good, and it was already becoming clear that we should extend our first stop a little so I could recover. We soon noticed that travelling in the Philippines isn't quite as easy and hassle-free as, for example, in Vietnam or Thailand. The poverty of most of the population is reflected in the locals' places to sleep, huts, markets, eateries and shops. So anyone who wants to explore the beauty of this country has to put up with quite a bit. If you expect good service, you're in the wrong place here – unless you book luxury accommodation. Luckily our first (cheap) accommodation in Moalboal was super clean and reasonably spacious, so I stayed at home while Chris explored the beach and the underwater world near the hotel. We were staying right in front of the so-called "sardine run". There was a great coral landscape you could explore straight from the beach. The beach stretched along the whole long coast of Moalboal, and you simply had to find an access point and a spot from which to snorkel up or down the coast. During our time in Moalboal we had to change accommodation four times, because it was so busy over the Christmas holidays, and the place was apparently a popular destination for domestic tourists. Most of them, however, crowded around the sardine run spot. On the rest of the reef wall Chris was usually the only swimmer in the water.
What you got to see at the sardine run was simply unbelievable: the coral landscape usually led into an almost vertical 90-degree wall along which you could leisurely dive into the depths. There alone there were so many great corals to admire that we spent a long time just looking down. The highlight, however, were the many thousands of sardines trying to join together into one huge shoal, but being split by the human visitors and underwater cameras into smaller, still impressive shoals whenever someone tried to swim through to catch the photo or video of the day. Unfortunately, visibility was usually clouded by plankton and kicking Asian tourists, so this was no easy task. The masses of sardines surrounding you were a deeply impressive natural spectacle and an unforgettable swimming experience.
In the first week, during which I had unfortunately developed bronchitis, I cheered myself up with the great video footage Chris brought back from his snorkelling and freediving trips. Since we had to move twice a week anyway, each time we had a different beach access nearby, and in this way Chris could explore most of the coast on his own. I did feel a bit uneasy at the thought of him being out in the water all alone – especially when he told me about his many encounters with the deadly banded sea krait. (A bite kills you in about an hour.) Luckily, the sea krait is very relaxed and doesn't mean anyone any harm, unless you try to catch it.
When I felt a bit better now and then, I already had a snorkelling guide with local knowledge by my side who showed me the best coral spots he had discovered. We could now add the banded sea krait, the feather star, shoals of sardines, various kinds of crabs and shrimps and of course new corals and sea anemones to our list of new animal sightings.
We often came across turtles and lots of lionfish and other kinds of fish we already knew from other areas.
During a night snorkel we also came across exciting kinds of crabs. Some looked fluffy, some had extremely creative mobile homes. One of them had even torn off part of a sponge to use as camouflage. Strange colourful jellyfish also crossed our path, and I was glad I had got into the dark water in leggings and a long-sleeved shirt. As always, the night outing was one of our favourite adventures.
A low-pressure system kept bringing us intensely rainy days. Once it rained for 40 hours straight and we had minor flooding in our area. A few times the Philippine early warning system also sent storm warnings to our phones, which worried us a little at first. But that seemed to be completely normal here. In any case, we learned first-hand what it means to live in an island nation where typhoons are the order of the day. Through interesting conversations with locals we found out what it's like to run a hotel in such an exposed environment and what effects a typhoon has on the whole coast.
In total we stayed a whole 2 weeks at a spot most tourists only visit for 3 or 4 days. That was the great thing about our long trip without fixed stops. We had no stress and therefore time to extend our visa from here straight away.
Since I wasn't really feeling better after the 2 weeks and the weather here was rather rainy, we decided to fly further west and skip our wish-list destinations on Cebu and south of it, as we wanted to see more sun again. We booked a flight to Puerto Princesa, on the island of Palawan in the west of the Philippines. We'll keep Moalboal in our hearts as a really great snorkelling spot and hope that the corals soon recover from the damage already visible from typhoons, tourists and boats, so that it stays as beautiful as it is to this day.
Here are the photos and the short video again. Maybe you can estimate how many sardines there are 😊: