Blown away in Boracay

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For Christmas Uncle Dave decided to treat us to a flight to Boracay (thank you very much). Boracay is a tiny island 35 mins flight on a wee plane south of Manila. It's famed for it's mile-long white sand beach which is so fine that it doesn't get hot even under the tropical sunshine.

The island was hit by a typhoon just a few days before we arrived, but the massive local clean up operation had been in full swing from the minute the wind and rain stopped so we didn't see the worst of the damage. The only major obvious problem that we saw was there being no power for most of our stay (although our hotel had a generator so we were not really affected by this).

Our hotel consisted of wee semi-detached huts with balconies and hammocks (bliss) situated in a lovely garden with a pool. They floated lotus flowers in the pool each morning. The grounds maintenance team took such care of the garden, it seemed there was a whole troop of them out each morning manicuring the lawn with a comb and scissors!

After a swin in the warm sea we decided that we should take a PADI open water course while we were here and signed up to start the next day with DiveGurus. After a quick lesson in the classroom and some time practising skills in the shallows, we were taken out for our first deep water dive! It's amazing to be at the bottom of the sea and see all of the fish from Finding Nemo just swimming around, minding their own business. Some of them felt brave enough to come and have a wee nibble at us but we can't be too tasty for fish. The coral is beautiful although a bit damaged after the storm and it is so colourful. The first dive lasted for about 30mins but it flew in. Everything moves in slow motion.

We did four deep water dives as part of the course along with lectures and shallow water dives. By the time we got to our last dive we were a lot more confident and in control but the weather had changed so visibility was quite poor and there was quite a swell under the water pushing us about. However we still managed to see quite a lot including a 2m long black and white sea snake curled up having a snooze on a rock. The course was great fun to do but tiring and I think we thoroughly bored Dave and Julie with our dive talk and early nights! We can't wait to go down again and there are so many accesible dive sites in the Phillipines that it shouldn't be long before we get wet again.

We spent the rest of our week in Boracay just chilling on the beach and sampling various cocktails on the many bars up and down the beach. Happy hour stretches from about 4 till 9 if you move in the right direction and it's only a pound per cocktail full price anyway. We would highly recommend a trip here, it's the best beach we've visited on our travels so far and it has a great party atmosphere.

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Comments

[Dorothy Quayle]

Illness
Just to say so sorry that M has been unwell. Scary stuff but so pleased nothing too serious. I can imagine nothing worse than being in foreigh hospital even if just for a check up. Take care and hope you are A1 health again by time you get this.