Alona beach

Philippines has more than 7000 islands and they pretty much all look stunning. It was hard to decide which one we should visit but we had a few criteria: good diving for beginners, nice beach to relax and easy to get to from Manila. We still had quite a few to choose from, but in the end we picked Bohol.
Our first stop is actually on an another island, Panglao, just off Bohol but connected via two bridges, one of which is a man made land bridge.

We booked a few nights at Alona Beach. Not on the beach itself (someone booked the wrong hotel) but in the town of the same name.

This town is very touristy catering mainly for divers, who flock here for the dive site just off the coast on Balicasag Island (yes, another island!) There are some many dive shops here, maybe more than there are restaurants! We chose one called Sierra Madre, they sounded very chill and had a great name for their boat: Normandy.
Balicasag is a short 30min boat ride from Alona beach, we loved our first two dives so much that we came back the next day for two more. Luckily the first day we dove with Gerald, a very good diver who also had a GoPro and was kind enough to share his footage with us. Hence the video gives us an opportunity to share what we can see underwater. Bear in mind that the colours on camera are different under 18m of water and the red and yellow don't come out 😔.

After two days of diving it was time for some relaxing by the pool. It gets very hot here. The restaurants on the main street are quite good and we also enjoyed nice ice creams.

Last day in Alona and we venture inland a bit to see some Tarsiers. They are little creatures, the size of our hand roughly, with big eyes. They're so cute! They are nocturnal so we tried to be as quiet as possible but with their big ears they spotted us. We didn't stay long to not bother them too much but it was cool to see them!

We enjoyed our stay in Alona beach, busier than we expected but the diving was worth it!Read more