Palawan: Coron - Island Hopping Tour "A"

This is the most popular island hopping tour in Coron and I don’t really want to contradict that, not sure though if it’s really that good. My senses got partially numbed seeing beautiful sights for the past 2 weeks, starting with El Nido. You know that feeling when you spray and sniff different perfumes on your arm, after the fourth spray onwards, your sense of smell somehow deteriorates and hard to recognize which ones pleasantly appeals to your nose.

The Tour A is almost similar to Tour B, five destinations and none of the destinations on both tours were repeated.

The boat tour started with the seven limestone rock mountains called Siete Pecados, snorkeling is the main activity here, lots of fishes and nice corals. Don’t wander swimming around the big rock mountains out of the guide’s sight here, a tourist got lost and never found. And then, it rained!

So we headed onto the next stop – Kayangan Lake. This is one of the most popular stop, when you take this boat tour, more often than not, you’ll be asked by tourists in Coron if you’ve been to Kayangan Lake. This could be the highlight of this boat tour – for most – it’s beautiful, yes, but too many people that day for my liking. Loud kids that look like adults – yeah, they’re adults, screaming, ok they’re happy.

Besides my camera’s battery ran out of power. I like Barracuda Lake better (Tour B the other day) if somewhat creepy. Perhaps Kayangan Lake is popular owing to the postcard –perfect view up there beside the cave right before descending for the lake. I heard it’s the most photographed scene in Coron. You have to climb and go down several steps here that is a bit slippery, it’s narrow that when someone’s going up and you’re on the way down, somebody has got to give way. And then someone in our boat got a heart attack! I misheard the lady staff at the boat, I thought she said - shark attack!

The boat captain and all his staff (except for the lady) took the woman to the town while we’re having our picnic beside the waters. But before we even finish our lunch, the boat came back.

We sailed again to – Green Lagoon – named for obvious reason (do I really have to elaborate?), not for the green mountains but for the green color of the waters of the lagoon. It’s shallow and good for swimming, crystal clear water, no corals though, and then it rained, again!

Moved to the next one which I really really like – the Twin Peak Reef – amazing coral formations down the water, bursting with colors, white, blue, violet, pink, all the colours of the rainbow perhaps, that was even enhanced by the swarm of fish swimming with you on the waters. We all swam, we all enjoyed dunking our heads on the water. I enjoyed snorkeling here a lot, spectacular underwater scenery! This is a favorite scuba diving spot.

Last stop – CYC Beach (Coron Youth Club) – couple of minute sail from Twin Peak. Nothing but a small sandy island inhabited by cats and dogs. Some mangroves on the water but it’s just a sight to see, not to swim as the water is shallow – knee-deep. Tourists feed the animals on this island, so that must be the activity here.

The Island hopping tours in EL Nido is much more structured and standard, in Coron, tours differ with different tour operators. Tour B may not be the same tour when you ask two different operator. And expect a sudden change of island destination, a substitution or a deletion resulting sometimes from a bad weather.

That being said, I like Coron's island hopping than El Nido's.

TIP : Rent a snorkeling gear if you don’t have one, you’ll regret it later if you don’t. But, don’t lose it, otherwise, you’ll be paying P1,500, which is the cost of a new one.