Balicasag Island and Virgin Island

We woke up before the crack of dawn and by the time we were ready and waiting by the shore for the pumpboat to show up, the sun was just slowly rising, quietly telling me it's going to be a good day.

It's going to be a good day

We sailed a little after six, but before heading to Balicasag Island we veered in the opposite direction to search for dolphins. We saw not just two, but a pod. They put up an awesome show for us, with one happily doing vertical spins as it moved farther and farther away. If they were happy to see us, we were ecstatic to see them.

After an hour of zigzagging across the sea to get a closer look at the dolphins showing off, we headed to Balicasag Island. There are three snorkeling areas around Balicasag Island: fish sanctuary, sea turtle sanctuary, and the giant clams area. I was dismayed to know that they charged Php 250 per person per sanctuary (too expensive!)...and that doesn't include the snorkel and mask rental (Php 150)! We decided to just check out the giant clams and the sea turtles.

Balicasag Island

We boarded a small paddle boat and the guide steered our little vessel toward the sea turtle sanctuary. When the guide spotted a pawikan (sea turtle), we all jumped in. I swam around looking for them. In the 30 minutes we were there, I saw about four sea turtles. Then, with difficulty, we hoisted ourselves on the little boat and rowed toward the giant clams area. There we paid little attention to the few giant clams and busied ourselves with the fish.

When the fish didn't want to be fed bread anymore, we again struggled to heave ourselves onto the paddle boat then rowed ashore to board our pumpboat to go to Virgin Island, a sandbar swarming with tourists. We allowed ourselves only a quarter of an hour to explore the sandbar for we had to head back soon to checkout of Dumaluan Beach Resort I.