calumboyan island tour + maquinit hotspring + coron marker

parang nasa Island Cove lang! - at Marili Coral Garden

Day 4: Ang taba ko na, ang itim ko pa! hahaha. This was our third day under the wonderful Coron sunshine and we were still loving it! We started earlier than usual because our destinations for this day were farther than our previous tours. This tour is actually better suited for divers (or at least people who can swim very well) since all the attractions included are underwater. Better bring your snorkeling gear with you if you do this tour. :)

But first, to show you how much we saved. Picture below shows standard fares for the tours in Coron. We got our Calumbuyan tour for only 3000php.

And picture below is part of the market. This is where we buy all the ingredients for our daily lunch before getting on our boat. Sinasamahan naman kami ni Kuya Raymundo (our boatman/tourguide) every morning. 

After naming mamalengke, we get on our boat to start the tour. Every journey to our daily destinations are already tours in itself. Ang ganda ng mga view, pramis. It just makes you eager with anticipation for the tourist spots you're heading to.

Our first stop for our last day was the Marili Coral Garden. Beautiful, beautiful corals! Sabi ni Kuya, mas maganda ung corals dito dahil hindi pa kasing sikat at kasing puntahin ng Coral Bay Garden. We spent 2-3 hours siguro dito. We had our lunch in one of the huts, relaxed a bit by lying on the hammocks and went to the sea with our snorkeling gears to see the corals and feed fishes. Sobrang nag-enjoy kami dito dahil solo namin ung place. There were no other guests during our whole stay. Parang private island ang drama. :P

the water was soooo clear! this was taken from our boat - while the boat was still moving!

some mangroves near the beach

crossing the bridge to our own private island. :P

Naging favorite past time na talaga namin ang fish feeding. We make it a point to bring lots of bread each day for our fish feeding addiction. :P We got a few scratches from the corals, though. There were lots and lots of them. We were trying our best to avoid stepping on them but they were just everywhere and the wind and waves were not helping us any. :P Pero sa mababaw na part lang naman kami. There were deeper parts where you can be high above the corals but we stayed where we could stand up and feed the fishes. :P Kulang na lang, hanggang umuwi eh dito na kami. But Kuya reminded us that we had other places to see. So off we went to our next stop: Coral Bay Garden.

Kaso napagod ako sa pag-iwas sa corals. Haha. I actually tried to sleep a little on the boat while we were at Coral Bay. It was drizzling so I decided to just rest my eyes. When I woke up, we were already leaving  for our next stop. Turns out my friends didn't spend too much time swimming here either. Same thing lang naman daw as Marili. And yes, that Marili corals were better. So sorry, but I've got no pics at all in this place.

Next on our list was the Lusong Shipwreck. The rain stopped a few minutes after we got there. And we got to see a rainbow over the sea! :) The shipwreck was full of corals and there were lots and lots of fish swimming around. This would definitely be a lot more fun if I weren't dependent on my life vest and could swim through the inner parts of the shipwreck waaaaaaay deeper into the water than I could go. Must. Learn. How. To. Swim. And. Dive. Anyway, we still had a blast taking turns on standing atop the tip of the ship (and feeding fish, as usual. :P).

after the rain. :D

those corals are on the shipwreck! isn't this shot so clear? FYI, it was taken above-water!

The last stop on our tour was the Sangat Shipwreck - also known as the Gun Boat Shipwreck. There were a lot of divers when we got there. Unfortunately, it was a bit too late in the afternoon and we couldn't see anything without going too deep. :( But we did make the most out of it with taking lots and lots of pics! Haha. But seriously, I wanna, wanna, wanna learn how to dive. But before that, I need to learn how to swim!

beautiful sunset signifying the end of our boat tours in Coron

 And that concludes our 3-day tour with Kuya Raymundo (and his brother in law - I forgot his name). After we got off the boat, we hired a tricycle to the Maquinit Hot Springs. For 300php, he took us to the springs, waited until we had enough of the warm water, and took us from there to Ralphs. We were at Maquinit for about an hour, relaxing our tired bodies in the warm water.

entrance fees for the hot spring

the hotspring itself.

We headed back to the town, had dinner at some tapsihan near the market and called it a night. We were leaving Coron the following day! :(

On our last day, we woke up early to buy pasalubong for our friends and families. We also got a tricycle to take us to the Coron marker - ang mala-Hollywood marker sa Coron. :P The grass was unkempt, unfortunately, so if you didn't know what the marker says, you might confuse it with COPON or COBON. Haha.

i'm in this pic! look for me and 2 of my friends! :)

AND we were off to the airport. :( Before I knew it, I was flying away from beautiful, beautiful Coron and was going back to Manila. Btw, I must've enjoyed the trip too much because I kept on dreaming I was still on our tour boat during the few times I drifted off while in the plane.

After 5 days in Coron, there were still so much left to explore. I would love to come back one day. Pero hopefully marunong na kong lumangoy (and preferably have a diver's license too!) by that time. In the meantime, I'm gonna be exploring other parts of Pinas muna. :D