I got up at 5.45 this morning to get a ferry at 7 only to find out they weren't doing a ferry at 7 today! So now I have many hours to kill until the 1.30 boat...zzzzzz. Those of you who know me will appreciate how difficult it is for me to get up that early!
I've stayed 1 night in Dumaguete, 2 nights on Apo Island and then another night just South of Dumaguete. I spent a day in the town until Charly arrived sitting on the water front promenade reading and getting harassed by men trying to sell me 'pearl' earrings (the fact that I told them my ears weren't pierced didnt stop them!) and also getting children coming up to me begging. Two schoolkids in uniform saying "Geev me your munee or food!" obviously didnt get anything. I feel slightly guilty not giving anything to others, they would have been happy with 5p no doubt, but I didnt want to be harassed for the rest of the day.
Apo Island was fantastic, we stayed at Liberty's which is a quirky building with electricity only at certain times, and the shower was a bucket, which of course is not the most useful after diving! The island is not really touristy, I think mainly it is a fishing village as you would expect. It had a great community feel to it and we were made to feel very welcome, everyone said hello and all the children wanted me to take their photo! The weather wasn't fantastic while we were there but we had two amazing sunsets, and our room a prime view of them from the balcony so we were extremely happy.
The diving was good, the coral was in excellent condition, and we saw an enormous school of Jacks which was pretty incredible. The Dive Masters were by no means marine biologists and we would have probably seen or spotted a lot more had we had someone who knew what they were looking for. Still, we saw an octopus, black banded sea snakes, more turtles and a cool electric-blue coloured eel that lived in a hole (at some point I need to learn proper names).
The place we stayed in last night was a complete rip-off, the same price as the really nice place I stayed in on my first night here, but dirty, smelly, no hot water and a resident frog. Although I made friends with the owners doberman 'spike'! Yesterday I got my first experiences of riding in a Jeepney and the Tricycles, all an order of magniture cheaper than a cab and much more adventurous! Everyone says hello when we drive past, although Charly laughed when I said I felt like the Queen waving from our trycycle. Apparantly the similarity is linked only my name, and the Queen would not ever wear my shorts, or no doubt my now very dirty favourite light shirt which I wear almost all the time due to it being the most comfortable thing to wear in this humidity!
As well as the photos below I have put some photos up on my facebook page, Click Here
