Third day of our Puerto Princesa trip was scheduled for the Honda Bay Island hopping. It is located on the eastern coast of Palawan. Snorkeling, swimming, and diving are some of the activities that can be done on the place.
Along the way, stores renting snorkel, swimming and diving gear, as well as underwater camera cases and bread for fish feeding, are available. If you’re on a budget, better buy your own gears before your Palawan trip since the rental fees were a bit pricey. We only rented 2 snorkel gears at 150 each and an underwater camera case for 250. We also bought 1 pack of bread for the fish feeding activity suggested by our tour guide.
While waiting for our guide to settle the boat to be used for the whole day island hopping, Kuya Eli spotted a coast guard with a Tavor Assault Rifle of the 21st century (TAR-21) where Ate Mei took a picture with the friendly coast guard officer.
Our first stop was the Pinambato Reef. It is actually not an island but rather a reef. We stayed in a floating cottage with a sea turtle figure on its roof while waiting for our turn to snorkel. Our Kuyang Bangkero guided us during the snorkeling activity since he knows where the beautiful corals are located. I saw different colored corals and some striped and colorful fishes.
After the Pinambato Reef, next stop was the Luli Island. The island was called “luli” because during high tides, the island will “lulubog” (sink) and during low tides it will “lilitaw” (appears). We had our lunch here as included in our tour package. We also tried to feed the fishes and did swimming and enjoying the rental of the underwater camera case.
After a couple of minutes resting in the cottages, we left Luli at exactly 1 o’clock proceeding to Pandan Island, our last stop.
Pandan Island is the most developed island as per our tour guide. Showers, comfort rooms, stores selling beverages, and food are already available here. Other activities available on the island such are kayaking (200/hr) and henna tattoo starting from 50 pesos depending on the design.
We left and ended our Honda Bay Island hopping around 3 in the afternoon. What’s good about Puerto Princesa is their community-based tourism where locals in the area are the ones maintaining and beneficiary of the earnings of the tourist attractions.
