Puerto Galera during COVID: Day 3 Itinerary – Snorkeling and Ihawan
April 26, 2022
Snorkeling at Coral Gardens and Giant Clams
Beach trip always calls for island hopping and snorkeling. We canvassed a bit for prices, but in the end, realized that prices were relatively similar across the board. For convenience sake, we went with a slightly pricier option, aka the one Amami recommended, just because we figured at least the resort vouched for them, and it also included pick up and drop off from our villa. We paid PHP 800 per person for:
- Pick up and Drop off from accommodations
- Sandbar (literally, you just kick off from the Sandbar, you don’t do anything here)
- Small boat (sits max 3), includes life vest, snorkeling gear
- Underwater Cave entrance fee
- Coral Garden
- Underwater Giant Clams
What’s excluded:
- Underwater Cave guide tip: So all groups are required to have a guide, but I think it’s worth it because the guide takes your photos. You can tip the guide however much you want, so just don’t be too cheap because that’s also their livelihood
- Lunch – although they do provide a set packages which you can order from (again, prices are set, and there was really a system in place. I thought prices were a bit pricey but not so unreasonable that you’d want to complain)
So let’s discuss our actual experience. We asked to be picked up at 7AM, as we wanted to avoid the scorching sun at 12NN. BUT on that day, SMART signal was mysteriously down across the entire island. So ridiculous. Lots of confusion occurred because of that – because I use SMART and our driver uses SMART, so really it was quite difficult to communicate.
We ended up being picked up at 7:30AM, and arrived at the Sandbar around 8:00AM. Horror of horrors, the small boats don’t have an overhead hanging because the wind was pretty strong that day, so having the hanging could tip the boat over. Huhu, so much sun exposure. Good thing I had liberally lathered sunscreen all over my body. So armed with a rash guard, a hat, and towels for cover, we were off!
First stop, the Underwater Cave. I had thought our family would be one of the earliest but apparently there are lots of early bird tourists. Still, I was glad we had gone relatively early because when we got to the cave, the queue was relatively short (still, we ended up queueing for 30 minutes). The cave itself is ayt. Not an experience you NEED to go through, but the cave water was refreshingly cool after queuing for 30 minutes under the sun (maybe that’s why they make you queue hahaha). Anyway, it’s also nice because your guide takes photos of you, which is really pretty much all the photos you’ll get during this entire snorkeling experience unless you have an underwater camera with you (But then your photos will be of the fishes and not of you)
Once you’re done here, they have a really cute system in place where you go to the guy with the megaphone, tell him the name of your boat, and he’ll announce to the whole beach that this boat should come and pick up his passengers. Haha, cute!
Now, onwards! Next stop would be the Underwater Giant Clams. To allow you to enjoy the experience, what they essentially do is have you cling to the boat as the boat motors through the waters. So you don’t tire yourself out swimming and just focus on viewing everything under the sea. Same principle for the Coral Gardens.
I don’t know though. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure what clams would look like. In my head, I kept imagining the clams we eat – you know, the clam soup? Plus, I’m practically blind without my glasses, I’m near-sighted. So I didn’t see a single clam. I googled it afterwards just so I know what I should actually be seeing hahaha! As for the Coral Gardens, hmmm it was ayt. They’re all hard corals so they weren’t vibrant in color. Some of the fishes were distinct in color and markings and we passed by some schools so that was cool. I guess my main gripe with the boat model is that kuya bangkero would pass by so fast in the areas where there were interesting things to see, but stay a long time in areas where there’s NOTHING. Anyway, not his fault, it’s not like he can see underwater but yeah, that’s the advantage if we could swim on our own coz at least we control our own pace and what we see?
Afterwards, we popped by the Starfish Island for ihaw ihaw. I just got the Package for 4 because I didn’t think the Package for 5 was such great value for money. Of the dishes here, the salted egg, liempo, grilled tilapia and bangus were good.
We also ordered the lato – which is a seaweed of sorts – also good!
And finally, we were deposited back to the Sandbar.
Shopping at the Public Market
At this point, we still had half a day to go. It’s an amazingly long time. Honestly, at this point, there isn’t much else left to do in Puerto Galera so you can actually head back to Manila at this point. Maybe shower quickly, then rush to the port to grab tickets (I’ll share our experience here in next day’s blog)
But as for us, we decided to just chill. We popped by the Public Market to buy bangus, tilapia, shrimp – because we wanted to do our own ihaw ihaw by the beach! See, even here – there are set prices, how nice. Hehe.
As a cherry on top, our villa also had an Indian mango tree, and they allowed us to pick mangoes. Ahhh delicious! We swam in the private beach, which by the way, also had decent corals – akin to Coral Gardens lol. Then afterwards, we grilled the bangus and tilapia, steamed the shrimp, and ate the Indian mangoes with tomatoes and onion. So yum!
Need help planning your Puerto Galera trip? Check out my other articles!