Our second day in Cebu is spent entirely on traveling from Bantayan Island in the north to Moalboal in the south. It's a very tiring travel by van and by bus. We have not anticipated that it will actually take us the entire day. In my calculation (thanks to Google Maps' info), our travel time will supposedly take only 6.5 to 7 hours. However it took us about 9 hours of travel including lunch. Most of the delay is caused by the traffic and the constant picking up of passengers which stretched our travel time by almost an hour.

Anyhow, we arrive at Moalboal at around 6:30 PM and it's already dark. There are lots of tricycle waiting at the drop off so there is no reason to worry about transpo. We head straight into our accommodation and grab dinner immediately after we settle in our rooms.

The following day, we rise early because we are on a tight schedule. We need to complete the island hopping before lunch so that we can take proper shower before checking out of our accommodation. By 6:30 AM we head to the tourism office to find our trike driver the previous night. He give me a paper supposedly with his wife's number so we can contact him. Unfortunately it only has the name and no number so we are trying to catch him by chance because his offer for the island hopping is much cheaper than the others we asked. Unfortunately we didn't find him so we just looked for another that won't charge us too much. We found one after much haggling we settle for a deal of P2000 for three locations, Pescador Island, Sardine Run, and Turtle Sanctuary.



Before proceeding with the island hopping, we are to register with the Tourism Office and pay P100 each for the environmental fee. Then we need to listen to the short briefing. After the briefing we buy cooked food at the nearby karinderia for our breakfast. Then off to our island hopping.

We are among the early birds so there is not so much crowd on our first stop. We are the first to arrive at Pescador Island so we are able to snorkel and swim for almost an hour without interruptions. The coral reefs in Hilantagaan is better looking than in Pescador (in my opinion) but the variation of fishes in Pescador is much wider. There are more species in Pescador compared to Hilantagaan so each coral garden boasts of it's own unique beauty.


Our next stop is the Sardine Run. It is our first time to witness such a phenomenon and I was in so much awe. I happen to forget wearing my life jacket so in the middle of my joyful swimming with the sardines, I am having difficulty staying afloat because of the strong water current. I am actually beginning to panic because I am having a little difficulty with my snorkeling gear but thank God I am able to swim back to our boat with extreme exhaustion. I learn my lesson so I immediately strap my life jacket on as we head to our last destination.



At the Turtle Sanctuary, I never thought we will really witness turtles as there is not a single sign of turtle in sight. After a few minutes of swimming and looking, our boatman has finally spotted the turtles and I think there are about 4 or five turtles in the area. Most of them are swimming deeper so we can't get closer because none of us are free divers and we only rely on our snorkels and life jackets. Luckily, the turtles swim closer so we are able to take videos of them. However, our gopro got battery empty so we are not able to take more videos of the bigger turtles that swim closer to us.








Overall, our island hopping experience in Moalboal is so much fun that I am longing to do it again very soon. I am in so much awe watching the turtles swim because it's my first time to see an actual pawikan and in the size that we saw I just feel so blessed. Also the sardine run is out of this world experience for me. The long travel going to Moalboal is so worth it. I promise myself the next time I find myself in Cebu again, I will definitely spend more time in the south to enjoy the treasures of Moalboal again along with other gems that the south of Cebu offers.