HONDA BAY TOUR!

Doing some island hopping is a must not only for Coron or El Nido if you are in Palawan. Island hopping is also a must do in Puerto Princesa Palawan.

We decided to booked this tour through our hotel. Since we are only 5 pax in a group and the tour van can accommodate a max of up to 12 pax, we had no choice but to have a joined group.

For the price of Php 1300, we haggled and granted a Price of Php 1200 for the tour since we also booked the Underground River tour and Firefly watching tour.

Me and my friends inside the tourist van

 OK, so much for the booking. At the day starts, we were picked up on our hotel at 7:30 AM. 45 mins towards north from the city Proper you could reach the Honda Bay. But before we reached the island, we need to stoped over to the aqua store where we can rent proper outfit (beach shoes), Snorkeling gear (mask and snorkel) and bread for fish feeding (luckily, we have flakes). Why we need to rent those stuff? As per our tour guide (Weng), beach shoes is a must during handa bay island hopping, it is requirement not only for the protection of the coral reefs that might got damage but also for the protection of one-selves against other things living and non living that might damage your foot or your health especially the sea urchin. Unfortunately, we don't have that gears.


Rent:
1 mask & 1 snorkel - 150
1 pair beach shoes - 150
_______________________
Total        Php 300

Arrgh. I'd to cried for 300 pesos just for the rental fees. It was burdensome on my pocket.

Alright... we need this gear so to continue.. We arrived at Honda Bay warp at around 8:45 AM. We stayed in the warp for quite some time while our tour guide preparing our permits and registration to take the tour. At last, around 9:00 AM we were asked to on-board to our pump-boat that will be our ship during the island hopping. Yes! This is it!

Overpriced rental beach shoes

First pit stop is the (1) Pambato Reef. It should be Starfish Island, but unfortunately, the owner of the island has a problem on papers (document/license) to operate so we were take the Pambato Reef instead. Declared as marine sanctuary through the enactment of City Ordinance No.390 on August 27, 2008. The sanctuary is further divided into conservation, ecotourism and buffer zones. We snorkel here for about 1 hour. The water is co clear enough to see the fish (not deep) even you're not in the water. Pambato Reef have this turtle-like shed (bench) where you can rest before, in-middle, or after your snorkeling. I enjoyed snorkeling here. But when a bunch (big group) tourist arrived and soak into the water... the water became unclear enough to see those fish.
Sorry to tell you guys, but I'm not familiar with the name of those fishes, but the reef has plenty of those fish with yellow color with black strips, blue-black color, and more of corals. Note: Fish feeding is not allowed here.

Pambato reef from a distance.

Pambato reef Front Shed

Queue... Ready for snorkeling

School of fish.. shot from above water

Around 10:15 AM, we leaved the Pambato reef and headed to our next pit stop...the (2) Luli Island.  Luli is actually a short term for "Lu for Lulubog and Li for Lilitaw", which means sink and rise which exactly what the island does. At high tide the island disappears and at the low tide the island re-appears. I didn't enjoyed here. I can't see those fish clearly, since the water is not clear enough. Might due to huge number of swimmers doing snorkeling and diving. By the way, there is a diving board not that high (on my own calculation I guess a 10-15ft high above the water). I didn't try to dive since I can't swim without the life vest (haha). Snorkeling is hard on this island if there could be a huge number of tourists. Anyway, you can feed the fish here. The sand bars are nice looking into it but I didn't dare to walk through it due to the direct heat coming from the sun that made me weak and decided to stay on the shadow of one the cottages.

Around 11:45 AM we asked our tour guide for the next island. Since its lunch time, I felt hungry and must hurry for buffet. So the group were assembled and headed to the 3rd and last island which is the Cowrie Island. We had our lunch also in this island. Cowrie island is named after the small-to-large sea snail, marine gastropod mollusc called "cowrie". This island is just recently opened to the public as alernative to the crowded Pandan Island. I enjoyed the buffet here. Yes! Finally! I found a shrimp dish. Wohooo! The shrimp was fried coated with flour/egg and then sauted with some carrots. The taste was sweet and salty. I love this dish. I don't mind if the needle-sharp protrusion of shrimp-mouth scratched my own lips/mouth only for the small one, if for the bigger shrimp I did remove it.  I didn't have a chance to snorkel here, but we enjoyed taking pictures instead. The island is still in-progress, since there some carpenters working/building an establishment. One thing I need to point out is... that time there is no water in the shower rooms and rest rooms.
    

Picture taking while we are in Cowrie

Finally, after a long hours of taking pictures and resting in our designated cottage, 2PM we decided to go home which agreed of each group. And here we ended our tour. Along the way home we surrendered the snorkel gears and beach shoes.

Tips:
Tip1 - If you can provide your own Gears (mask,snorkel,beach shoes) is much better rather renting.
Tip2 - If you can provide your own flakes (skyflakes or magicflakes) is much better rather buying bread costing 5-10 pesos each.