Coron, Palawan Diaries: Sangat Island and Kayangan Lake - Day 2

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A bloodcurdling scream forced me out of sleep and had my heart racing. It was around 3 or 4 in the morning and the room was dark. I fumbled for my phone, lighted it up, and tried to discern my roommate's face who was lying on the other bed. Then I asked, "Ok ka lang? You having a bad dream?" Then I saw Alchris trying to cover his face with his arms, mumbled something that escaped me.

That, ladies and gentlemen was how my second day in Coron began. Okay, that's enough exposure for you Alchris. Let's continue the Coron story shall we?

Patrik & Tezz Guesthouse is built on stilts and sits on top of the water. When we got there the first day, it was low tide, so I was kind of surprised to see the water that morning.

 

I saw Rhoda, Dennis, and Martha having a little chit chat outside so I joined them.

The early birds talking about the meaning of life hehehe...

Then I saw this cutie cute cute Persian cat of the guesthouse named Daddy Cat. I grabbed it and practically forced it to have a little photo session with me hehehe...

I'm not a cat person but come on, Daddy Cat is cute!!!

At 7:00 we were served breakfast. Tocino, sunny-side-up eggs, rice, banana, juice, and coffee.

Before we left for our island hopping trip, Tezz informed us of our itinerary. Aside from accommodations, breakfast, and lunch, the tour was also included in our package. It means we didn't have to worry about the environmental fee, boat fee, entrance fee, and all other forms of fee during the entire trip.

We had a nice boat, definitely way better than the ones in Caramoan. Not only is it bigger, it also has benches on each side of the boat, stairs to help people to come aboard and alight from it, a hammock, and most of all, it has a freaking toilet! The biggest challenge I think that I had in Caramoan was dealing with the call of nature. The boat and the islands we went to had no toilets so we had to relieve ourselves into the sea. I'm telling you, it was not the best feeling in the world, so I was glad that I didn't have to repeat the experience in Palawan.

 

The weather was nice that day, meaning, the sky had a generous supply of clouds that obscured my enemy: the sun. This helped our island hopping more pleasurable for me. By the way, I am going to focus this post on our first two stops that day, Sangat Island and Kayangan Lake.

Sangat Island

Before this I have never tried snorkeling, ever, and it's on my bucket list so I was naturally ecstatic about this adventure. We rented snorkeling gears from the P&T guesthouse, it's 150 bucks per day. Of course, I didn't know how to use it so I struggled in my first few tries. The water always manage to get its way inside my goggles and I wasn't sure how to breathe through the mouthpiece, because really, how many of us just use our mouths for breathing?

Eventually though you sort of get the hang of it. After I made some adjustments to my goggles, I could finally see underwater, then I don't know, suddenly I was breathing through the mouthpiece. So it wasn't as hard as I thought after all.

Sangat (photo by Den)

I'm sorry I didn't get to take many pictures in Sangat. What I remember about the place though is that the water current was a bit strong. It has a ship wreck site, which I'm telling you is beautiful. And it's memorable just because that's where I had my first snorkeling experience.

Kayangan Lake

Kayangan Lake, also known as Blue Lagoon, has a steep reputation of being the cleanest lake in the Philippines. Martha swore to us that the lake looked just as beautiful as in pictures so I had high expectations about the place. I am happy to report that I was not disappointed.

This is the entrance.

Since Martha had been to Coron before, she doubled as our tour guide. Before we went to the lake she led us to this spot where you could have a good view of the Blue Lagoon. It involved climbing... again. Good thing it didn't involve 700 steps this time.

So we reached the "spot" that has a cave, but we didn't bother going inside, and just posed for some pictures by its mouth.

Now opposite that cave is this majestic view of the Blue Lagoon.

If you're curious what Pao was doing behind me, well that makes two of us

After that mandatory photo session in the boulder, we continued our way to see Kayangan. This time, we had to descend the slippery stairs. Then lo and behold, it's the Kayangan Lake!

(photo by Den)

Martha, and those pictures you see 'round the Internet, they weren't lying. The water is crystal clear. I was beyond impressed, I mean just look at how clear the water is...

The lake was already teeming with other tourists, majority of which, were wearing life vests. I'm not sure how deep the lake is but this was my first time to swim in a body of water where I couldn't see the bottom. No worries because we had life vests to help us keep afloat.

It didn't take long for our group to swim our way to the other side of the water.

Except Alchris... He actually didn't believe me when I told him back in Sangat that life vests would keep him afloat. It was only in Kayangan where he realized I wasn't just trying to hasten his death. It took him a while though to get comfortable in the water. In fact, he spent like forever, treading the water, in a backward manner, to get to us.

Malayo man ay mararating din

So this is us, enjoying our time in Kayangan..

Then we spotted a cave and realized there were tourists who go inside to take photos. We waited for our turn because the cave is actually quite small, it couldn't really take many people.

Just to prove to you we got inside...

Oh yeah, we heard Martha screaming for Alchris to quit pulling her down. Damn Alchris, he was actually the one who had murderous intentions! Hahaha...

We didn't have waterproof camera, but I do have a waterproof pouch where I put my phone. That's why we have photos even when we were in water (#resourceful #eksplanador #baketmaynagtatanongba).

Time to leave the cave

And it's time to end this post. I just had to make a long post about Kayangan because it is my most favorite among all the places we'd been to in Coron.

On my next post I will share to you what happened to the rest of our second day in Coron. See you real soon!