Day 146: Ferry to Coron

Onwards again! Our time in El Nido was up, and time to head further north again. The island of Coron lies north-east of the northern tip of Palawan, and is mainly accessed via boat from El Nido. Given the choice of a 3 hour fast catamaran leaving at 6am, or a 6.5 hour slow ferry leaving at 8am (and at half the price of the fast boat), we opted for the slower, later boat.

Arrived at the dock by 8am for our 8:30 departure, and the process seemed fairly painless. At least until we got on the boat and sat there for an hour waiting for the coast guard to give clearance for us to leave!

The boat itself was fairly small, though larger than any other boat we'd been on the Philippines. It apparently had capacity for 80 passengers, though quite where they'd all sit was a bit of a mystery - it was comfortable enough with probably around half that number.

After we finally left the dock, pretty much everyone on the boat plugged in headphones and went to sleep, though of course I didn't have that option! After feeling a bit ill I went out on the prow of the boat, where there was fresh air and sunshine, along with intermittent splashes of water from the waves. I spent a couple of hours standing up here watching the islands slowly crawl past.

Around 11:30am, we passed the last couple of islands and out into the open ocean where the swell picked up quite a bit. Even on the upper deck at the stern I was getting a bit wet, so retreated inside where lunch was being served. A Filipino speciality called Bihol express, it's a pork stir-fry style dish with a bit of coconut milk, almost Thai style. Quite good, though this version of it had no chilli and was a bit bland - but who's complaining.

After lunch I stayed downstairs and caught up on my FindPenguins posts which were embarassingly a few days behind, then spent a bit of time reading before I started to feel slightly nauseous again. So I went back upstairs and stood on the upper deck at the stern, enduring the occasional splash from below. I stayed up there for the next couple of hours, basically until we docked.

Tricycle into town where our hotel was very easy to find (it's opposite the bus station), and was a nice clean new building. Only issue is that we're on the third floor and there's no lift, so I foresee a lot of stairs in our future! And there's no wifi in the rooms, only in the lobby and the second-floor sitting room. So still very limited internet access for me.

Went out for a little explore of the town, though there's not much to see! It's a lot smaller than El Nido, and even less set up for tourists. We were both quite tired and hungry (thanks to our early lunch), so we ended up eating dinner at an Italian restaurant on the waterfront. Not the cheapest place, but the food was good. Before retiring, we also booked ourselves in for a snorkelling tour tomorrow which we're looking forward to!Read more