It was a first time for me.

I am not a diver of any sort. I just wanted some adventure since my days have been very repetitive. I was getting sicker and sicker every day. It was just wake up, work, eat, sleep- nothing special about it. Life was getting really monotonous that’s why I decided that I should do something about it.

My parents didn’t like the idea of me going but I still did. I am 25 and so enclosed in the city. I felt like I was in an enclosure so I went out. A friend helped me, and we were all set. To get to Moalboal, we had to meet up at the Cebu City South Bus Terminal at 5:00 am and wait for a bus going to Moalboal which was 107 pesos. During the trip, we had so much fun looking at the great sceneries such as mountains, the rising sun and the different cities we passed by. 

We reached our stop which was a market place and bought some food from the Three Sixty Pharmacy. If you haven’t brought much money and have an ATM, you better withdraw there in the pharmacy since the town doesn’t have much ATMs around. It’s better to have lots of cash in your pocket than relying on ATM.

Next thing, we had to go to Andy’s Talisay which was my friend’s main hang out place. It was located in Panagsama Beach in front of Pacita’s Beach Resort so we had to ride a tricycle from where we are. Be careful of drivers asking for a high price, the correct price for a motorcycle ride costs about a hundred pesos. We managed to bargain a 120 peso ride after some time.

The ride was about 15 minutes. After the ride, we stopped at where Ocean Safari was and then walked all the way to Pacita’s Beach Resort. I bet the tricycles weren’t allowed to go any further.

Andy’s Talisay was simple and cozy. No wonder why my friend liked the place. Guess what, you can leave your things there and no one’s going to touch it however, I was still a bit skeptic so I left all my gadgets to the person there.

The Sardine Run

We were all ready to go to where the Sardine run is so we swam out to the deep part of the beach. The nice thing about the beach is that it is already deep even when it is just a few meters away; perfect for snorkeling and diving. I was scared at first because you couldn’t see the progression of the depth. It was instant! We then followed the reef’s path until I saw some weird sparkling things. My friend, Evan who is a free diver signaled me to go near him and then pointed somewhere. I looked at it clearly. and then wow! Those sparkling things? They were sardines – a trillion of them! I was only snorkeling and I was in pure amazement. How much more if I knew how to free dive? You couldn’t count the sardines anymore. They were too many and too busy! If they eat me, I would be just bones in a few seconds. They are that many! Imagine a kilometer of busy sardines. I still can’t believe what I saw until now.  I also saw a Parrot fish.

A funny experience was that when Francis was stepping on a stone, it happened to be the house of a small fish. It was mad and tried to drive him away by scaring him. We felt sorry for it and swam away.

There were jellyfishes at some parts and I even got stung by one! I wasn’t angry about it though. I was glad since it was my first time. After researching, I found out that I was swimming with a box jellyfish! Good thing that wasn’t the one that stung me. I also saw a different kind of Jellyfish. It has lights with it!

Pescador Island

The next morning, we were lucky to hitch on a pump boat along with scuba divers (hurray!). It was a 15 minute boat ride to the island. We weren’t able to get on top of the small island since there were no places to be able to climb there. It was like a round cliff. When I got to the water and snorkeled, I felt like I was in a different world- corals, colorful fishes, jellyfishes. It was all so wonderful! Every coral had its school of fish and there were also different schools on the different “levels” of the water. Some stayed on top, while others were at the deep part near the ocean floor. Other fishes stayed at the deeper waters which I explored for a while. It was also my first time seeing a trumpet fish!


My Recommendations

For food, you can buy from Andy’s Place and Lantaw. They have good food with reasonable prices.

The egg sandwich at only about P60 pesos in Andy’s Place can fill an empty stomach. They also have crocodile sisig and crocodile burger which were ordered by my friends at about P200 plus and was worth every bite. I suggest you try their strawberry smoothie which is P100.

On the other hand, Lantaw had Indian, Thai and other Asian food which was priced reasonably. The food was great and was even more than we could consume!

The rest of the restaurants there were very expensive and not worth it. It must be because of the increasing population of the tourists. Take note that the sea food is more expensive than meat.

About Their Water

This was one of the difficult things we encountered in the place. Fresh water was scarce – I mean really scarce unless you have rented a room there. There weren’t any public comfort rooms for you to bathe or answer nature’s calling after swimming in the beach. I asked around about the situation of their water and they said it really is difficult and they wouldn’t let you have some water for bathing even if you pay them. It’s that scarce. 

After 2 days of amazement, I was happy and proud to have witnessed a sardine run and swam the waters of Pescador Island. It’s not an everyday thing! For the people who haven’t witnessed it yet, I suggest you plan a trip to Moalboal as soon as possible.

Discover. Seek. Learn. Enjoy! Cebu’s Best. 

#cebusbest #y101fm