PHILIPPINES: Bohol

Bohol was the last island we visited on our Philippines trip. My primary reasons I wanted to visit Bohol were to rent a scooter and ride to the Chocolate Hills, and to dive the Balicasag Island reserve (as recommended by Zac at Eco Dive in Los Angeles). With our underwater camera lost at sea at our first destination, we were unable to photograph the things we saw underwater at Balicasag; giant sea turtles, barracudas, a school of a thousand jackfish swimming in a circle around us, and countless shrimp, fish, eel and colorful corals. On my birthday we hired a boat to a tiny sandbar island covered with starfish, urchins and sand dollars, and then rented scooters to see the Tarsier Conservatory. We spent about 5 days on Panglao Island (the small island bridged to Bohol), and spent the last day stranded by a typhoon (which was just a lot of wind and rain) and unable to catch our flight back to Manila to fly home.

Photos by Jason MacDonald and Renee Lusano, November and December 2012

Oh boat captain, taking us on a private trip to a sandbar island.