Scuba and seafood in El Nido

Happy (Chinese/Lunar) New Year to everyone! To start the (Chinese/Lunar) New Year out in style, we left the kids in KL with Grandpa Dan and Grandpa Kathy (more on their adventures in another post) and went to El Nido, Philippines for a week of scuba and seafood! We were joined on this adventure by Toby, a PUGSOM faculty member from Seattle living near us in KL, and Alex, big bro of Toby visiting from the States.

The Philippines is a country made up of an archipelago of over 7,000 islands. Many of the islands are known for their countless white sand, palm fringed beaches and mountains of smoldering volcanoes. (Of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't point to Brian's post on typhoon relief work in Ormoc and Nicole's Operation Smile work in Mindanao for other facets of Philippines life.) On the east side of the Philippines, bordered by the South China Sea, is the island of Palawan, known as the "last frontier" of the Philippines. El Nido (which is Spanish for "The Nido"), located on the northern tip of Palawan, is a small town with a unique combination of backpacker hostels on the beach and 5 star private island resorts. (The island resorts are a 5 to 40 minute boat ride from El Nido town.)

In recent years, a midlevel (i.e., affordable) new type of boutique hotel has sprung up on some of the beaches on the outskirts of the town. We stayed at an amazing little place, Cadlao Resort, about a 10 minute country lane walk from the town. After the overnight flight and a mad rush to change terminals in Manila, we arrived in El Nido mid-morning. Our first day, after checking into our hotel, we walked along the beach until we found a guy willing to hire us a small boat to island hop. We took our snorkel gear and went to 2 little islands and a lagoon. We spent hours snorkeling and then recouped from the overnight flight by falling asleep on a deserted beach in a lagoon of turquoise water. (By the way, major kudos to Alex for arriving from the US in KL around noon, hitting Mont Kiara by 2 pm, and then getting in a taxi back to the airport that night at 10 pm for the red eye to Manila!) When we returned to the main island we hopped a tricycle, the predominate form of transit in town--it's a motor bike with a passenger side car, to a remote beach to watch the sunset. I have not seen a sunset like that since our honeymoon in Costa Rica 10 years ago (for those who don't like mushy pictures, you may want to skip ahead...now.)

The first day was great but our entire trip had been planned around day 2's main activity - SCUBA diving. All the dives during our stay were excellent. But by far our favorite dive was the night dive, so we will tell you all about that one. We had not been on a night dive since we were certified in Honduras 11 years ago. Mary was pretty tired and cold at the end of our diving day but decided to give the night dive a shot because our divemaster said we had a 99% chance of seeing multiple seahorses! When we got back to the dive shop to get ready for the dive, that prediction had dropped to 70% but we were already signed up to go. By the time we were on the boat it had dropped further to a strong "probably" but Mary was already back in her (still wet) wetsuit and there was no turning back. Without time to grab dinner, a little triple decker of white bread with mayonnaise provided by the divemaster boosted her spirits even further. Brian might reluctantly admit that he is not a super big fan of being submerged in absolute darkness but we were joined by a Finnish diver who looked like Thor so we figured we were probably safe. The dive was in a word - amazing.

Upon decent, Brian thinks he saw a giant sea turtle. At first he was really excited and tried tapping on his tank with his flashlight to get everyone's attention. No one turned around because he couldn't generate enough of a sound wave with the plastic handle. It was then that the potential downsides of night diving crept into his thoughts. What if that wasn't a sea turtle? Or worse yet, what if it was a sea turtle? An evil, hungry, man eating sea turtle?!?!  It would be minutes before anyone would notice that he was missing. Where was Thor? Would Thor's lightning even work underwater? Wouldn't we all just get electrocuted if he tried to use it to save Brian? The situation was getting out of hand fast! (Editorial note: As frequent readers of our blog surmised, Brian wrote that paragraph. During this episode, Mary was trying to equalize and descend with proper orientation to the reef. No concerns here about man eating sea turtles or Mjolnir. But our dive buddy really was Thor.)

Once Brian strategically placed himself with the reef on his left, and Mary on his right (towards the open ocean, and the turtle) he was able to continue his search for seahorses with only a few looks over his right shoulder. Our divemaster found at least 8 seahorses! The way they glide through the water is mesmerizing. We could have watched them all night. We also saw a large barracuda, a big jellyfish, and tons of cool coral and sea urchins. We also saw the coolest crab that was shaped like a piece of coral. Mary kept pointing at it but Brian couldn't figure out what she was so excited about. Great, another piece of coral. While he was distracted by the coral the turtle monster was probably getting closer and closer. And then the coral stood up and walked a few feet. Our dive master found one and gently flipped it over. It was incredible. Really made Brian wonder if that next big piece of cool looking coral might be a hungry, man-eating coral-crab monster!

On one of the days of our trip, we did find ourselves in a minor tropical storm. Fortunately (?), the storm hit about 9 am, which meant Mary, Brian, and Toby were already an hour into a two hour cliff hike when the rain came in. To turn around or go on in the rain? Either way, we would be soaked, so up we went. The hike/climb was excellent and we met a super cool Russian trio. Unfortunately, with the pouring rain, we missed out on what was said to be an incredible view of the region. But we got a great (?) pic of Brian and Toby against the grey sky. Unfortunately, the storm grounded all flights and Nicole ended up not being able to join us on day three as planned. :o(

We did find a time (and a place) to watch the not-so-super-Bowl. El Nido's higher end Art Cafe somehow pirated a Korean satellite signal and put the game on at 7:30 in the morning. It's been a long time since we started drinking that early. (Grandpa Bulldog, the Bloody Mary was terrible - we miss you and Laura and the muddler. We switched to beer around 8 am.) Kudos to Toby (from Seattle) and Joey Galloway who I had forgotten was a Seattle receiver back in the day. We were surprised at the number of Americans in El Nido. Of course, during the game we got to know everyone in the bar drinking shots for each touchdown at 8 am. Turns out most expats living in China and Hong Kong head out of the country for CNY and a fair number end up in the Philippines. Mary was highly disappointed that the US Superbowl commercials were replaced by random NFL highlight reels and ads for a Philippino speed skater who will be in the Sochi Olympic games.

Our last full day in El Nido was pretty cool. We decided to rent kayaks from our hotel and explore the surrounding islands. Toby, a pretty athletic mountaineering type, took the lead on navigation and did not disappoint. We paddled to Cadlao Island (which means smile and loosely describes the footprint of the island) and sat on a most beautiful beach to enjoy a picnic lunch. As we were finishing our picnic lunch of tuna salad and fresh mangos, we saw a dog approaching from the distance followed by a man with a machete. A more jaded traveler might have been slightly apprehensive but 1) the dog looked like Penny, and 2) you can't eat a fresh coconut without a machete and we were surrounded by fresh coconuts! Sure enough, the man--the "guardian of the island"--waved hello and offered to cut us some fresh coconuts to help us rest up for our big paddle ahead. Really, does it get any better? Delicious!

My pictures won't do it justice but the remainder of the afternoon took us through some of the most beautiful lagoons, rock formations and mangroves that we have ever seen. To top it off, Alex met us at the end of the paddle with margaritas (shaken, with salt) and fresh sashimi.

Brian doesn't want to bore you with recounting our final day where he slipped and fell on some coral while running on the beach and pretty much limped and bled his way back to Manila and then to KL.  (Yes, it was stupid to be running alone on coral, miles away from the hotel.) But it will be important to know about in humorous wheel chair photos to come...

Thanks, Toby, for taking these amazing shots!