After nearly 40 hours of travel, 3 flights, 3 nights of subpar hostel sleep, 2 days island hopping around El Nido, and 1 sunburn for each of us, it was time for Sarah and I to head out with Buhay Isla for our 3 day, 2 night boat trip from El Nido to Coron.
The first day started off strong, with ice cream for breakfast and the strangest little Halloween parade rolling through presumably the main street in town. Ice cream at 7:30am is always a good idea except maybe when you’re about to spend 3 days on a boat and sleeping on uninhabited islands without any of the amenities I’ve become accustomed to. Like running water and, in some cases, toilet paper.
But alas, it turned out that a thirty cent ice cream cone must have contained all the important vitamins and nutrients that my stomach needed because I was the picture of health for the next 3 days!
We loaded the boat, lugging 30 pounds of our belonging, via a literal plank of wood placed between the dock and the front of the boat. I can honestly say that I’m surprised no one fell in, but my money would have been on Sarah until I saw that one of the Buhay Isla staff had grabbed her backpack from her. Lucky her.
Getting on the boat, we handed over our big backpacks and watched them disappear into a large, black dry bag in the center of the boat, which they rolled and sealed shut after reminding us that we wouldn’t be able to get them back until… that night? The end of the trip? We had no idea. So we asked, just to be sure, if we would get our bags back at night. Their reply? “Yes””No.” Yup, two staff members both answered our question at the exact same time, but with opposite answers. So we tried again.
“Our bags… will our bags be coming to the islands with us at night?”
Answer?
“Yes… your bags will be in this bag.” *points at big, black dry bags at the center of the boat.*
Us: “Okay, but is that bag coming to shore?”
Them: “Yes. At the end, we’ll take your bags to shore.”
Us: “Okay, but do you mean the end of the day? Or the end of the trip?”
Them: “Yes!””No!” (Yup, it happened again as two answered at once.)
Us: *Confused silence.*
So, after a very confusing 5 minutes, someone from London told us that they think the bags would come to shore with us every night, so we smiled, nodded, and let the conversation go to its grave. To be continued.
Day 1 on the boat took us to Cadlao Island, where I climbed up in a tree, we lounged around the beach, and we got a glimpse at what our camp might look like later that evening. Boarding the boat, Sarah and I wandered up to the roof, where we could lay some cushions down and sit in the sun. And off our boat went!! 30 minutes passed and the boat had started to go through a bit of a rough patch in the sea. 30 more minutes, and Sarah was starting to look a bit green. 30 more minutes and, while I hadn’t really noticed the sea, Sarah was visibly ill. Finally, we got notice that we’d be at our next destination in just 30 more minutes. But it was too late for Sarah. I scampered down the ladder just in time to see her puking off the side of the boat. Classic Sarah-Andi Vacation Luck.
To be fair, Sarah was a really good sport given how ill she was for the rest of the day. We spent the next 6 hours snorkeling through a shipwreck, (aka me, inhaling way too much salt water, almost drowning, and giving up with the mouthpiece) seeing a million starfish, swimming through crystal clear, 70 degree waters, and reapplying sunscreen every time we blinked.
When the sun started setting and the boat approached a beautiful, white, sandy beach, we knew it was time to head in. Staff threw out that anchor, told us to hand them our “night bags” and “dry bags” and swim on over to shore. They would be bringing our bags over on kayaks, so we could pick them up at the beach and have a few hours to kill before dinner. No worries! So, I shrugged on a life jacket, since I was pretty sick of heavy swimming/had already nearly drowned twice, and hopped into the water. I’m glad I did that, as there were times where the water was so shallow that I couldn’t even kick my feet. We had left our water shoes on the boat (of course) and the coral was too sharp to stand on, so we had to kind of float over it. Sarah, after having a rough day, was certainly not enjoying the swim. Sam actually had to hold her feet up at one point to protect her from the coral below us. A nice, leisurely swim!
After getting our assigned hut, Sarah promptly wiped the sand off her feet, pulled the mosquito net aside, and crawled her poor, ill body into bed. Honestly, if I hadn’t spent half of my last trip to Europe violently ill, I would’ve been worried about her. But alas, I knew she’d be okay. Just needed about 18 tabs of Pepto and 42 gallons of purified water first!
After a half an hour, I went out and grabbed our dry bags, which contained almost nothing of value (who needs sunscreen at night? Not us!) and looked around for our big bags, which contained everything of value… And… wouldn’t you know it… they were nowhere to be found.
Because.
They were back on the boat.
With the other bags.
Which were not coming to shore.
I had to break the news to Sarah, who absolutely looked like death at this time. Given that we only had the swimsuits on our backs, our gross, salty, sweaty beach towels (Sarah’s “beach towel” was an airplane blanket courtesy of China Eastern Airlines), some sunscreen, and a couple empty water bottles, we were definitely in need of a few items. I asked Sam, our tour guide, if I could take the kayak back to the boat to get some things from my bag. I’m sure he must have been so confused-- why the hell would I need to get things from the bag on the boat when we had already had several conversations covering the fact that the bags wouldn’t be coming to the islands with us at night? Good question, Sam. Good question.
And so that is how I found myself on the front of a kayak, with a very nice Filipino man speaking broken English sitting behind me and paddling us into the sunset.
Getting on the boat, I struggled to find any of the things Sarah had asked for (our bags were a bit of a mess at this point), so I grabbed her my last clean pair of shorts and a pair of clean underwear, grabbed some of my soap, shoved it into my dry bag, and hopped back in the kayak to be whisked away back to shore.
So neither of us made it to the shower that night. Gross? Yes. Intentional? Not really. Sarah literally didn’t get out of bed (bed? I don’t know if you can call it that. It was a mattress on the floor of a hut.) I don’t have much of an excuse, other than pure exhaustion. (Oh and also the fact that I failed to grab any of the soaps we needed out of Sarah's mess of a bag.) Ever spent 3 days island hopping in the hot Southeast Asia sun? (If not, you absolutely should.) It’s exhausting!
Having not kicked jet lag, I was up the next morning just before 5am, so I grabbed my book and headed to the beach, where I plopped my butt into the sand and spent a few hours engrossed in a murder mystery thriller, waves crashing at my feet.
Sarah woke up shortly after, feeling like a million bucks!! Just kidding; but she felt a thousand times better than the day before, which was a blessing because I am not strong enough to carry her around all day and I wasn't about to give up my life jacket for the swim back to the boat.
She sat next to me as a little dog trotted up to us. Adorable!!! So, logically, I started petting it. He started doing the puppy-nibble thing, which was just so stinking cute. At first. But then, the bites started getting harder, and he started chewing at my book! I bopped him on the nose and mustered my most mom-sounding voice while I told him “no” over and over again until Sarah reminded me that this island dog had probably never heard that before. Good call. I missed my dog at home; he knows what “no” means.
After getting on the boat, we made 5 stops that day. We played volleyball on the beach, explored some more empty beaches with turquoise waters and soft white sand, and ventured into a little village to watch our Buahy Isla team play some basketball. Despite applying layer after greasy layer of SPF 50 to my body, I managed to get a but burnt. This shouldn’t really surprise anyone-- have you seen me? I’m basically translucent in the winter. My Chicago skin hadn’t seen the sun in ages.
Sarah and I hung out on the roof of the boat, in our own little area, listening to our favorite bands blaring through our phones, completely disconnected from the world, looking up at a perfectly blue sky and listening to our boat crash through waves as we made our way from stop to stop. Honestly, one of my favorite memories in my life. Just me and my best friend, not a care in the world, smelling like sunscreen and salt, dancing on the roof of a rickety boat in the East China Sea. Bliss.
That night, we made sure to prepare our bags properly before heading off to our base camp for the night. We were assigned cabin 5, with a perfect view of the beach. And tonight was our first proper Buhay Isla shower! By “shower”, I mean a giant barrel of fresh water with a small bucket inside that you could use to dump that water over yourself. To give ourselves some a slightly more normal feel, Sarah poured water over my head and I returned the favor. It was almost like having running water!
Dinner that night was mind blowing, with sizzling tuna and fresh fruit galore. Overall, this trip proved to have some of the best food I’ve had in my life, and this dinner was no different. (Will I forever dream about the deep fried bananas with chocolate dipping sauce that we had as a snack after swimming through coral in the late afternoon? Yes.) After dinner, I retired to my room to read my book, using a headlamp for light, until the wee hours of the morning. Jet lag, man, it’ll kill you.
Our third day was spent bopping around a few more islands. Our favorite was aptly named Sun Island and, I’m told, has a perfect view of both the sunset and the sunrise. *sigh* a dream. We took a nap on the beach, snorkeled into the clearest waters I’ve ever seen, and generally enjoyed our last day on the sea. Sarah and I reclaimed our position on the top of the boat as we listened to the music blaring through their speaker, almost downing out the smacking of the waves as our ship rocked its way through the open water. It was a bit of a rocky passage, and we had somehow managed to claim the only spot on the boat that was both sunny and dry. We each held on to the edges of the roof to keep ourselves from being flung overboard, giggling the whole time. Dramamine must have saved Sarah’s life this day, because we were some of the only two people enjoying the aggressive swaying of the ship this day.
Pulling into the Coron port, I wanted to cry a bit. Sure, WiFi is great and yeah, running water can be a bit convenient at times, but the past 3 days had been so full of incredible memories, hours of belly laughs, a fair bit of sunburn, and so many pristine beaches that I could hardly tell them apart by the end! I’d miss napping under palm trees, or watching little crabs run around the sand, or drinking straight out of a coconut in the blazing midday sun.
Sigh.
Saying goodbye to our Buhay Isla adventure was certainly bittersweet. But knowing we were leaving our rustic experience for a bit of pampering at our resort in Coron sure did make it easier...
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