An encounter with the Ticao Island Tourism

Instead of waking up at 6, the stress from the 17hour land travel woke us late at 9am. It was already past 11 when we made it to Bulan fishport in Sorsogon.

Having not planned and researched on this trip, i have called the tourism no I got from journeying james' post for Halea Park Masbate.

Tourism officer renante told us there might not be any more monreal bound boat, and instead, we can ask for san isidro bound boats and from there take habal to monreal.

 I asked him though how much it would cost us to charter a boat from Bulan straight to Halea, but he said it will be too expensive if we do it from Bulan port (this statement would make it very funny later)

Meanwhile, we caught an outrigger boat that loads gasoline and delivers to Monreal. Boatman agreed to take us for passenger fare of P120 (and was cool to our P100 bargain).

We made our way to Monreal port and one of the staffs of the boat asked us to wait while he look for a boat that can take us to Halea. 

Meantime, since it will be late by the time we arrive from Halea and there will be no more boat to bulan, we asked for possible ways to get back to Bulan for less. 

We were told by some vendors in the port market that it will be a thousand pesos to charter from Monreal to Bulan.

Then, the tourism officer asked thru txt if we are already in the port. Thinking of how we can get back to Bulan, I called him instead. The conversation ended with him saying he'll try to check for rates.

Meantime, the staff of the boat came back with his operator, and asked for 500 to Halea (which is the published rate anyway). At this time, we were planning to hitch from the fishing boats (from bulan) in the park.

We started to sail and the signal was going on and off. I thought about going on airplane mode to spare my battery.

By the time we finished from the trip, and on our way back to bulan (we finally agreed on paying 1500 inclusive of the drop to Bulan), i turned off the airplane mode. 

Suddenly, messages from the tourism came in (sequence as follows)

I wanted to reply but people like him deserve no attention. It is needless to say  on this post how untoward his message is considering he is from tourism.

We told the boatman about his message, and the boatman added that there's a lot of nook and cranny going on with the tourism funds. And it is no surprise for all these charges he is claiming on his text message. I wonder what that 1500 is for. Not even manila ocean park would charge that much. 

Halea is nice, but to charge 1500 to see it is hilarious. It's not as if it's the only blessed reef around! My message to Mr Renante: visit Carlagan, in Pollilo island and scratch your balls.

Thank goodness we didn't deal with him, we spent only 1500 instead being fooled by his 6K generously discounted package