palawan, part one

I've recently spent five days in Puerto Princesa with several ex-officemates.  I suppose I should chronicle the key events before the details fade into memory.

(Halfway into the post I realized it would be too long,  so I decided to break it up into parts.)

We checked-in at the Liberty Park Pension inn late in the afternoon, then had dinner at the famous Kalui's.  The ambiance was unique and the food was great, even for someone who's allergic to seafood.  After that went to Kinnabuch for a few drinks.

The next morning, we woke up a bit late for the 2-hour trip to Sabang Beach, where we were to take a boat to the  Subterranean River site.  There was a long line to the boats when we got to the beach, which wansn't so bad, except that the Subterranean River site was closed off for the Mutya Ng Pilipinas candidates.  By the time they were done, the tide was too high and the waves too rough for travel by boat, so we ended up just going back to the city. :(

We decided to go to Honda Bay on the next day. Thankfully it's on the other side of Palawan so the sea wasn't wavy at all.  We had a boat all to ourselves for the whole day of island-hopping.

The first destination was Lu Li (short for Lulubog, Lilitaw) , which basically just looked like a desert island because sometimes most of it is underwater.  Afterwards we went to the Pambato Reef site for our first snorkeling excursion.  Despite the reef's overall greenish hue (caused by the storm that hit Puerto Princesa the previous weekend) and fish feeding (to attract fish) being forbidden, it was still quite a breathtaking sight.

[caption id="attachment_184" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Pambato Reef"][/caption]

The next stop was Starfish Island, where there weren't much to see except for the starfish scattered everywhere.  After that we hopped to Snake Island for lunch and for fish feeding.  Eliza accidentally took a picture of me feeding the fish:

[caption id="attachment_185" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="at Snake Island, Palawan"][/caption]

As you can see, this was actually near the beach, so the water was not deep and I could afford to not use a life vest.  The real reef was another story.  Also, it doesn't clearly show in the photo, but I'm actually holding a water bottle filled with bits of bread.  It's quite a handy fish food dispenser, since you can bring it underwater with you, whereas if you just hold all the bread in your hand you'd have to keep it above the water or else it gets devoured quite quickly. (I meant the bread, not your hand. Hehe. )

Too bad all of my friends' cameras ran out of batteries by the time we discovered the deeper, more colorful reef in Snake Island (thanks to our boatman who guided us).  The fish there were incredible -- the clownfish and angelfish were the only ones I could name, but there were many more.  You just release some bread crumbs and the fish swarm towards you, some even nibbling at your fingers if you didn't release the crumbs fast enough.