Tablas – Looc

Finally Escaping from Boracay

Although we liked Boracay, after six days on a party island we were glad to be moving on to a new destination.  We had to be up a 7.00 to get to the port to catch a banka across to Kalibu to catch a connecting boat to Tablas (Part of the Romblon group of Islands).

So after a quick Tricycle to the port and another ½ hour boat trip we were then sitting in the waiting room to get our boat to Tablas.  Both Shell and I were slightly anxious as all announcements were in Indonesian with no information boards, but after a few false starts we eventually determined when it was the correct boat to board.  Once aboard another medium sized Banka with plenty of locals and chickens.  I was a bit disconcerted that the harbour master came on board and took a load of pictures on his phone of the passengers, bearing in mind the hazardous nature of boat crossings in the Philippines!!. We were told that the previous year a family hired a small private Banka, despite the weather warnings and the bodies were never recovered!.

 

Anyway soon we were off and it turned out to be quite a pleasant crossing of around two hours which went down the coast of Boracay and then past another couple of islands on the way before mooring up at Tablas.

 

Walking the gangplank (basically just a plank) with both cases I almost fell in but just about managed it to the jetty where we were met by a small scrum of locals eager to transport us to our destination. Shell and I hadn’t booked anything at this point but knew there were a couple of hotels in Looc, so we waited around for a while and spoke to a couple of the people with motorbikes, we told them we would walk to the town and find a hotel ourselves, but after speaking with them some more we agreed for them to take us to our next destination the following day.  As we had agreed this they then said they would take us to a Hotel free of charge and soon we were on the back of two bikes with our luggage wedged between the handlebars and the rider (one of which was named June -  “as in a man not a woman!” as he put it).

We checked into a hotel that wasn’t that great but at a price of around £12 we were not complaining and then we thought we would check out Looc town.

Basically Looc, which is the capital of Tablas,  turned out to pretty much a one horse town and after wandering round it in the heat for some time and discovering that it had pretty much no restaurants of note and it definitely did not have any bars, we ended up sitting outside a small store drinking a couple of beers that we bought there.  Anyway after a few minutes the owner asked if we would like to drink our beers inside (maybe he thought a couple of desperate alcoholic westerners sat outside his store wasnt good for business!!), so we were shown inside the backroom and given a couple of chairs and an ashtray, the owner even went and got a stand-up fan for us to cool us down.  With that level of customer service we stayed for a couple more!!

 

Once we finished rehydrating  ourselves we then headed back to the Jetty as we had read there was a fish sanctuary in the bay that you could get a trip to so you could snorkel there.  We found the place where you could hire a mask and snorkel and pay for a boat to take you there, it was only a small boat and after a short 15 minute trip we found ourselves on a small pontoon.

The sanctuary had been set up to stop illegal dynamite fishing which had ruined the coral in the area and so the pontoon was manned everyday by local volunteers to protect the area from this activity and help the coral grow back.

So for the next hour or so Shell and I spent snorkelling around the reef looking at what now were becoming the usual suspects, Parrot Fish, Angel Fish and black and yellow stripy guys that I don’t know the name of, which was very nice.  Snorkelling over here is like swimming in a tropical fish bowl, we won’t realise how spoilt we are until we go snorkelling in Jersey next!!

 

Our bodies were starting to shrivel in the water so we headed back to the pontoon and clambered on board only to find there was no sign of the boat that had bought us here and we were the only ones left there apart from the guard (who we thought was 24 hour).  So after a short bit of miming ‘where’s our boat’ the guard made a phone call and another boat came across and picked both of us and the guard up (end of his shift) and took us all back to the jetty.

 

We returned to the hotel for a bit before heading out for to find something to eat.  We again walked around the pretty deserted streets and the only place we could find was a café/take-away place so we decided to sit there with no beers (only soft drinks there) and order far too much food because we were hungry at the time!  We were also slightly unsure of what we were ordering but we ordered what we read was a traditional Philippines dish, fried mince mixed with egg and another thing which turned out to be like pork scratchings, plus noodles, prawns, spring rolls and chop suey.

Feeling slightly bloated after that feast we then headed back to the hotel to watch a film and have an early night.