If there’s one word I would use to describe this Cebu trip- spontaneous. 

I told my aunts, Tita Beng and Tita Darl, I wanted to go to Cebu and they made it happen. My cousins, Kristine and Jennel, came along with us. We booked round trips ticket to Cebu and nothing else. We had no prior schedule for touring and no place to stay overnight. The plan was this: on Thursday evening we had a flight out Kalibo for a layover and then another flight to Cebu city. Our flight to Cebu was at 12pm. At 1am on Friday, we spontaneously decided to take a detour. We made plans to go to Boracay. So we went. We woke up after two hours of sleep, threw on our swimsuits, and headed to Caticlan (the top of the island) at 4am to take a boat to Boracay Island (ask me the details about what happened during this morning, and maybe, I’ll tell you the crazy parts).

After seeing it with my own eyes, I now understand the allure of Boracay. The palm trees, the seating and umbrella arrangements, and the shops and restaurants, they are all by the ocean. Since we arrived right after sunrise it wasn't as packed as I initially expected it to be. Our Boracay detour had us moving on our feet the entire time to catch our flight to Cebu at 12pm. After an early and crazy morning, we made it.

Fast forward to being in Cebu and taking a four hour bus ride southwest of the island to Moalboal, and we luckily find a place to stay for the weekend. We got lucky… very lucky. The place we hoped to stay at was fully booked so our tricycle driver took us to another building that had one available room. It had a backyard facing towards the ocean. We told our driver we wanted to tour Moalboal and he tells us that he knows someone with a boat and people to tour us. We made plans for him to take us the following morning.

Saturday: we woke up at 4:30am, put on our swimsuits, and then met our tricycle driver outside. He drove us to the dock where we met three young boys who would be taking us around for a tour. We headed towards our first stop- Pescador Island. As we sailed towards our destination, we saw dolphins swim by us. At Pescador Island, we swam with fishes. SO. MANY. FISHES. They surrounded you everywhere. I felt like I was in a fish tank.

After swimming with fishes, we headed towards our next stop where we swam with sardines. Looking down from the boat, you think you see corals at first. However, once you get off the boat and dive into the ocean, you’re surrounded by sardines. SO. MANY. SARDINES. When everyone was busy taking photos, I would sink down into the water and just stay still to watch the sardines swim in a pack. Our tour guide captured this moment for me and I’m so grateful he did. 

The last stop for this tour was to swim with turtles. I chased after turtles! None of my aunts and cousins can swim so our tour guides took me for a wild swim to chase after turtles. I’m not going to lie- it was tiring. I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance to swim with turtles yet here I was, doing another activity on my bucket list. In Coron, I met Nemo and Dory. In Cebu, I met Crush. I know I’m making a lot of Finding Nemo references with all my island adventures, but what can I say? I love the ocean.

After this tour we went back to our room to rest a bit. For our next adventure, I put away my mermaid tail and used my feet, but that story is for my next post. Here are the photos from the beginning of our Cebu trip.

Moalboal, Cebu

SO. MANY. SARDINES.

“So much of what you are is where you’ve been.”