See the Sardines Run
- Rebecca Grattage
- Apr 26, 2024
- 3 min read
Tuesday was a day by the pool, where we actually got our first real rainfall so far. We hid under the sun umbrella for a while and when we realised that we wouldn’t be sheltered for much longer and rather than dying out, the rain was actually getting heavier. We then had to run and hide under the cover of reception. We saw a couple of large frogs (or toads?) and this was probably the most exciting part of our day. This is where I sat for a while, I had some lunch ordered from nearby and tried to, rather unsuccessfully, read my book. We later went out for some food at a restaurant and had some actual authentic Filipino noodles.
Wednesday was once again activity day! It was an early start for us. When they said that we’d be picked up at 7am I can say my heart dropped quite a bit. However, it wasn’t so bad and we were up and ready and were actually waiting for the tour guide to show up.
Now, at this point we believed that we were pretty good with the tuk tuks (or trikes as they’re actually called here because it’s actually a contraption with one wheel and attached to a motorbike. Three wheels, therefore a trike) but we were not prepared for the road that the journey to the beach would take us. It was the bumpiest trike journey I think we have endured so far.
We got ourselves some snorkels and life jackets and followed our guide into the sea. We went to see the sardine run. I don’t know how many sardines I was expecting to see but there was definitely more than I thought there would be. We were maybe 10 to 15m from sure and there were never ending fish. It was really fun to see them and I would’ve happily just floated and watched the fish for a while. The tour guides wanted to get photos though so that’s what we attempted, but in the end the videos I took of the fish myself are actually probably the ones I like more. This might be partly because I don’t actually like diving while I’m snorkelling so I avoided this and instead just floated on my life jacket until I got cold enough to want to get out.
I did manage to see two turtles before I got out though, one came up for air between us so that was a really cool experience to have and they didn’t even seem to be phased by the number of people that were floating in the waters around them.
After the sardine run, we decided to sit on White Beach. We didn’t find somewhere to sit in the shade, BIG mistake. I got my legs pretty sunburnt down the from from sitting in the sea for too long so now every single one of us have been sunburnt. Just hoping it heals pretty soon because it’s very painful at the moment and I’m not enjoying being lobster red. No one believe me that it was bad and it actually doesn’t look too bad until you look and realise what colour I’m supposed to be. Lesson learnt; the sun is STRONG here and the sea is deceptive, just need to remember to take my own advice next time around. The aloe Vera gel is really being used up to heal as fast as possible so fingers crossed.
The beach though was were me and Georgia decided to try Calamansi juice, which is Philippine lime juice and we’ve been seeing the fruit all over tha place so we thought we’d give it a try. It does taste different than both lemons and limes but is very refreshing and I will be having it again.
Was a nice day though, a fun activity and a lovely beach and some good food with a trip to our favourite market again, just a lot of sunburn and an early night to prepare for our 4:30am pickup to get to the airport for our 9:20am flight with the 3 hour drive.
