Spectacular, Unique, Awesome

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After a couple of nights in Manilla our next goal was one of the top 10 must do activities in The Philippines. The MoalBoal sardine run was described as a world unique experience to see vast shoals of sardines in an easily accessible location. It sounded like a Tourist Brochure advertisement which often let you down however in this case it was extremely accurate. An hour long flight from Manilla, a 2 hour bus ride and a 10 minute tricycle ride had us outside the beach side room we had booked. Our balcony overlooked a very tatty beach covered in dog crap and a host of various local boats blotting the view. Not a good start we thought.

We needed snorkels to accompany the masks we had bought in Singapore so wandered down the alley that separated a small group of bars and dive operations and found a delightfully friendly French man who we had a long chat to during our purchase.

‘First time to MoalBoal?’ ‘Yes’ ‘Let Me give you the run down, go into the water and swim up to the yellow building, there you will see sardines, 100% and turtles 25%,

And how right he was, right under the boats that moored outside our room were sardine shoals hugging the edge of the 30 metre reef drop off and on the way out to them we spotted 4 turtles. Unbelievable! They seemed endless, we covered about 200 metres up the reef edge and they just continued to appear. Looking like a large slinky cord that moved and dispersed whenever frightened, they were hypnotic. With no underwater camera equipment the memories are ours alone however if you are interested YouTube ‘MoalBoal sardine run’.

The day was topped off by discovering happy hour cocktails down by the French mans shop. A day not to forget.

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