We had a few more hours to kill on Day 06 this morning before we had to say goodbye to Malapascua, so after taking a quick look at the morning sunrise videos I took with the DJI Mini 4 Pro and putting together a first-cut compilation, we settled in for breakfast at the resort’s restaurant. Note to self again: in these places, it’s best to keep expectations of fare low, and in turn prepare to wait for your food to be served! Our relatively non-complex breakfast sets took 45 minutes to arrive.
Our Malapascua guide next met us at the resort in the mid-morning, then motorbiked us to the pier at Logon beach. Another note to self again: just because the ferry timing says 10AM doesn’t mean that it’d actually leave at that time! More specifically, the ferry in some cases would only depart when there are enough passengers to make it worth the trouble. Thankfully, we didn’t had to wait long for the ferry to fill. Shortly after the initial scheduled departure time of 10AM, we were off – leaving Malapascua and headed to the mainland. Our Cebu driver received us again at Maya port, and we started on the – very – long drive back to Cebu city where we’d board a ferry to bring us to Bohol.
This journey according to Google Maps is 133km and takes around 3.5 hrs: we ended up taking 5 hrs. Ok, so we stopped for a quick lunch at the ubiquitous Jollibee, but a good part of the way, especially as we approached Cebu city, took what felt like forever in lieu of very slow traffic.
The ferry to Bohol was departing from Cebu Port 1, and it was pretty busy. More notes to self: we needed to pay a small Terminal fee of 25p per passenger, then approached Check-in to convert the e-tickets our tour operator had purchased for us into printed tickets, then go to the neighbouring counter to check-in our luggage (100p per baggage item). There seemed to be more than one ferry departing at our 4:20PM timing, so when the departure gate opened and everyone moved out, we got a little lost which ferry we were supposed to board LOL. We fortunately found the right one, and were shortly on our way for the 2 hr crossing to Tagbilaran port.
Another fun observation: just when our ferry was departing, a video of a unison prayer played on the deck’s TV system: and it prayed for journey mercies. That was a bit of a shocker for us, and we weren’t sure if that was a good sign! Still, the locals that were around us did not seemed the least perturbed, so that provided us some assurance that it was all good.
The ferry reached Tagbilaran port at 6:45PM where we were picked up by our driver: who spoke very little English, drove a rickety vehicle, and couldn’t find the way to our resort at Alona Beach. He had to frequently stop and ask for directions, and coupled with how bumpy the ride was, we were dreading the next couple of days when he would bringing us around Bohol for the various visitations in Bohol. As luck had it, this fellow wasn’t our actual assigned driver for our Bohol itinerary: our assigned driver was unavailable this evening, so we got his backup. So, tomorrow morning, we’ll have a second roll of the dice and hopefully, we’d get a driver as proficient as our Cebu one!
In all, we departed Malapascua at 10AM and reached our resort only at 8PM: that was a very long 10 hours getting from one end of the island to the tip of another island. Still, one look at our Bohol resort – the Blue Ocean Bohol Beachfront Resort – provided us no small measure of relief: it looked stunning in the evening, and sits at a very quiet spot of the otherwise very lively beach.
To be continued in the next post for Day 07!