Last week was my motorbike adventure to Bohol and I didn’t quite mention about how I got home. I woke on my final day in Bohol at 3 am and drove to Alicia. Here I met a local guide and we hiked up Binabaje Hills for sunrise. We then hiked back down and I jumped on my bike with all my gear. I drove to Tubigon port and caught the ferry to Cebu City. I arrived there at 3:30 pm and then drove for 3 hours in the sun all the way back to Moalboal.
It was a pretty tough day of concentration, dust, sun, and traffic. I pretty much unpacked and then repacked ready for my journey the next morning at 6 am. I had to wake early to catch the bus from Moalboal to Cebu City to get to the airport to meet Josh and then we flew to Coron. That was a whirlwind 30 hours!
We arrived in Coron and the main purpose of this trip was to experience the off the beaten path locations of Coron with Big Dream Boat Man. I’d been in contact with them for a while and finally, we managed to find a time that fit the schedule. We would be on a private expedition of 10 locations over the course of 3 days. Each night we would spend camping or in a small hut/homestay on a different island while exploring the islands, sand bars, reefs and shipwrecks in the area.
This trip was above all expectations and reminded me a lot of our boat trip in the San Blas Islands of Panama. Literally, every time we visited a reef it was incredible. I didn’t really expect this from Coron as you don’t hear much about the reefs as it is all about the cliffs and lagoons when you talk about Coron island hopping. I was honestly blown away by the reefs, shipwrecks and water clarity at every single dive site in Coron on this visit. A side note: we were generally the only group or in the company of very few at most of the spots pictured.
We camped on the first night at South Caye and had some pretty heated basketball games with our guides, Anthony and Krish. Josh and I managed to drain some buckets (push our way to multiple-attempt layups) on the way to one victory and two losses against superior ballers.
It was the first time I was having a real crack with the Mavic 2 on a trip like this and it seriously smashed it. With the Polarpro filters, the colors that come out of it are insane. These shots are some of my favorite I’ve ever taken and I’m pretty proud of a lot of them. Every flight is fun and I’m always learning the art of aerial angles, which is much more complex than you could imagine. Top-down aerials are simple but finding angles that incorporate depth of field from an aerial view is often quite a task. I enjoy the challenge and always enjoy my free helicopter tour of everywhere I visit.
I will write a full blog post about every location we visited on the island hopping with Big Dream Boat Man shortly but for now, I will post my favorite photos below.
After Big Dream Boat Man, we headed to Casa Fidelis Resort. This is where I did one of my first ever collabs way back on 2016. I also sent my parents here a year ago. It was awesome to catch up with the staff and see how the resort has progressed with a new pool and rooms. Casa Fidelis provides full service including meals and private island hopping. We did one day of island hopping with Casa Fidelis, which focused on free-diving at Kayangan Lake and Barracuda Lake. I ended up going on a few minute-long dives, which were surely around at least 10-meters. We both feel like we improved a lot in just a few days of focusing on free-diving. I made a pretty epic video for Sony of the underwater cliffs, which will be released shortly.
Josh and I managed to keep the running rolling. I clocked a 42km-week, which continues my progression up after hamstring tendinitis struck over Christmas. I’m still building back up to 50km weeks within the next few weeks and will remain there until the Bali Hope 84km Ultra-Marathon, which is in 8 weeks on May 25.
If that sounds like a busy week, it was! We also found time for an Adventure Bag Crew Clean Up at Mt Tapyas. 12 of us collected more than 20 huge garbage bags of trash at the popular sunset spot. You can read about the cleanup and see the photos by clicking on the link: ADVENTURE BAG CLEAN UP HIKE UP MT TAPYAS IN CORON, PHILIPPINES
We have now arrived in Manila and are putting in a huge week of work on the computer before heading out sailing for 9 days. I hope you had a great week. Here are the photos from the week. I’ve started including photos from my phone camera roll for a raw view at my week of travel as well as my favorite drone and DSLR shots from the week.
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