Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Exploring Balagbag (na maliit) Island in Calaguas


it's my nth trip to calaguas island, and this time, we'll be spending 3 days. We've spent Saturday and woke up the sunday in calaguas, and for the second night, we thought about spending it elsewhere. 

The group of island is vast, and Mahabang Buhangin is just one spot.

I had long wanted to step into the island of Maculabo, and this is where we intended to stay. Funny thing is, it was already when we left Mahabang Buhangin, and after the boat has moved that we were told that we might not be able to drop there; The boat in-charge was saying the waves are too strong.

We asked for some other cove, beach, or island (hopefully inhabited as we don't have all necessary utensils), but it seems there is no other option.

Meanwhile, just next to Calaguas beach is this island that has seemingly the same fine white sand. They said it's called Balagbag na maliit.



On the saturday, I met Chef Janjie (Lakwatserong Kusinero) in mahabang buhangin and he was telling me about this cliff jump in Balagbag na Maliit that made it more interesting.



Just a 10 minute ride and we were in the island. When we arrived, a few men were working on setting up cottages. We unloaded our luggage under some shade, then decided to stroll around.





With the shape of the hill, the grass, the cliffs, plus the strong waves that splash onto the coast on the opposite island, it seemed that you are in Batanes; Over at the back is a small cave (though it's not possible to stay so long when waves can cut right in).

From afar, It seemed like this island is connected to one more island, until you get to the other side and see the gap. It would have been easy to swim between the islands but the current from one side meets with the current on the opposite side.




From the top view, you could see the marine figures below.







After around 2-3 hours exploring the island, we went back to see our luggage. I spoke to some of the people there, and to my surprise, there is no water source just yet. They'll have to take a boat and fetch water from the mainland (Calaguas). 

We also ran out of food supplies, and neither is there a catch we can buy. Thought for a moment, and decided we better head back to calaguas while we still have daylight. Our next problem though was how, as there are no more motorized boat. There is a paddle boat available, but for 6 of us, it will have to do 6 returns. 

I told the group to hang on. I'll take the paddle boat to the mainland, and from there, will get a motorized boat to pick them up. It was about 45mins of paddling I guess. The current was strong and it was pushing us towards the middle; Likewise, the tide is high and so instead of walking along the rocky coast, I had to trek on the hill (which wasn't bad at all as I passed through some settlements and also that viewdeck for the whole stretch of mahabang buhangin).



Looking for a boat, i chanced upon this group who was about to start their lambanog session; I told them about our session, and luckily, they agreed to fetch the group in exchange for their lambanog. Done deal. I ended up being shown where they source their lambanog, which happened to be our flavor for the night.

1 comment :

  1. A beautiful place to do an outdoor fashion shoot!

    I'm hoping to see this place soon.

    ReplyDelete

Popular Posts