Today we completed the Coron Ultimate Tour following another omelette brekky from next door.
We were picked up via tricycle from our homestay and taken to the small boat port where we boarded the boat and waited for the remaining 20 people.
The tour consisted of 7 sites from 5 different spots. They managed this by incorporating the skeleton wreck, lunch and coral garden stop into one location.
Once everyone had arrived we had our boat briefing and headed to twin lagoon. These lagoons were a mix of 30% fresh and 70% salt water and it was compulsory to wear a life jacket while swimming (guts). The lagoons have this name as you can swim between the two lagoons through a hole in the limestone rocks.
The second stop was CYC beach. This was a white sand beach on a tiny island. Kyle and I spent the whole visit snorkelling. There wasn’t a whole lot of exciting things to see but there were sea urchins EVERYWHERE. An amusing experience here was locals on small boats harrasing the tourists to purchase booze and chips.
The next stop was the skeleton wreck and coral garden. After the snorkelling we had done on the expedition the coral garden was pretty disappointing. However the skeleton wreck was pretty cool. It got it’s name from as all that is left of the boat is its outer frame. The boat was another Japanese boat sunk in 1944 and was about 5 m deal at the shallow end.
At this stop we also had lunch at a small hut on the beach. Lunch was pretty good with fish, squid, seaweed, pork and the rest of the classic Filipino staples.
We then travelled to Kyangan lake which is 30% salt water and 70% freshwater. To get to the lake we had a short climb of 167 steps which led us to some stunning views.
From here we had to head back down the other side to reach the lake. The lake was very beautiful with limestone formations and it was full of needle fish!
Our final stop for the day was Siete Picados. This is a marine park and has it’s name as there are 7 small islands dotted around the area. This provided some of the best snorkelling we had done to date. To get to the best part of the reef we had to swim across a wide shallow patch between two of the islands that was covered in sea urchins. It was pretty daunting to navigate while trying not to get stabbed (again) but we made it without a scratch. Here we saw huge schools of jackfish – some of the fish were quite large, definitely the biggest we’d seen to date. On top of this the coral was awesome and there were bucketloads of other fish hanging around as well.
Upon our return to Coron we went to the homestay for a shower and short nap. For dinner we went and got some street food bbq and beers which turned out to be pretty good. We have been much more lax with eating here in Coron compared to El Nido and haven’t got sick yet!
After dinner we went to a reggae bar for some more beers with old mate Kevin. A live band came on at 9 and they were pretty bloody good!
Kyley on Tour 