The Philippines - Dimakya Island

In the morning I woke up early and looked around. The sun was shining, the tide withdrawn completely and we even had a few more pets around (Greg, the gecko disappeared by that point).

Spot the bird!

I love this guy, it looks like it's wearing sunglasses!

We had an amazing breakfast, gorged ourselves crazy with mango again then went to find the hiking trail the resort’s booklet mentioned. It was surprisingly steep and treacherous but it was good to do some exercise. The view from the top was stunning.

We were told that the boat will leave at 10.00 so we got ready and waited around. It arrived an hour late full of other passengers. We got on. Everything seemed calm and dry so we put our life jacket on and our luggage and backpack in a plastic cover with a raised eyebrow. We were even told to put the backpacks not on the floor but next to us on the seat. It all seemed way too much precaution….for a few minutes. Then we got out to the open sea and the waves suddenly grew and our little boat was struggling to go ahead. We were going very slowly but still big waves started to crash against the boat and covered everybody with water. We were given towels. A Korean family was having great fun oooh-ing and aaaah-ing after every wave, the mother even asked whether this is a typhoon! We had great fun with Paul laughing at others’ reactions.

After our eventful journey we finally arrived. A band was playing the resort's welcome song for us and we even got welcome drinks! What a welcome!

We dumped our stuff and went on an expedition around the island. It has a lagoon with cool big lizards in, hidden beaches and great wildlife.

The sea has an amazing colour here and apparently we can go snorkelling on the house reef that we attempted straight away of course, but the we did not find anything and the waves were so strong that it was quite dangerous to get in and out of the sea. Oh, well.  

We checked out the dive centre and were told the hard truth. We came diving here at the worst time of the year. The visibility is ridiculously bad, everything is white. The sea is still quite rough so we won’t be able to do the Apo Reef diving safari. The dugongs are not around either, and there is only one turtle nest on the island that will hatch in February. To be honest it left me quite disappointed as I was really looking forward to these activities however the island is beautiful, their house reef was apparently voted to be one of the best house reefs in South East Asia and is full of turtles. There is a cool Japanese wreck that we can check out as it is in a sheltered bay and the visibility is not affected that much. We signed up for our dives then raided the seafood and the mango section of the buffet dinner. I reckon I could eat mango three times a day for a very long time. I’m up for it!