Matutinao

I was going to build up to it but honestly I'm just too excited. Since arriving in Moalboal, we have overheard so many people talking about seeing turtles and we still hadn't seen any. As we are very much completionists we just had to see turtles. Our plan for today was manic. We don't want to stay another night in Moalboal but there are quite a few things we need to do. After talking to Kevin the night before we decided that the plan was:

7am - Snorkel for turtles
9am - Shower and have breakfast
10am - Get the bus to Kawasan Waterfalls
1pm - Leave Kawasan and get the bus to Liloan Ferry Port
2pm - Get the ferry to Dumaguete
5pmish - Arrive on the Island of Siquijor

So in the morning we got up early and were in the water by 7:10am. I'm actually very impressed Will got out of bed after all the drinking! We snorkelled for quite a while towards white beach but had no luck so we started swimming back and decided to head in the opposite direction where we had heard a lot of turtles were spotted on previous days. The current was very very strong and honestly I felt like I was just staying still even though I was swimming as hard as I could. So we got out of the sea and just walked instead.

When we got back in it was almost instant. You could suddenly see snorkellers swimming to a single point and hearing shouts of joy, so we quickly swam towards them and they were there!! It was unbelievable another thing off my bucket list has been crossed off. They are so elegant and adorable, I can really understand the hype and excitement! Seeing clownfish angel fish and turtles I truly felt I was in Finding Nemo.

We were now a bit delayed as we were out for an hour and half but we had plenty of leeway. We arranged to begin the next part of our travels with Shannon who is from California and was also in our diving group. Little did she realise what she was getting herself in for, to be honest little did we know either! She's super sweet and obviously we are always up for new company and flexibility.

So we rushed back, showered, packed, ate breakfast and then chilled out waiting for Shannon who was trying to submit her vote for the election. We were aiming to leave for 10:30am, but we ended up leaving at 12! Will and I decided to make alternate plans as we definitely wouldn't make it to Siquijor in one night. When Shannon arrived with her driver Luke we jumped on the tricycle and off we went to catch our bus. It was pretty straightforward we arrived at Kawasan by 13:45 and dropped off our luggage with a local resort.

Kawasan waterfalls were beautiful the entire walk in had such beautiful scenery, aqua blue streams and rives, lush green forest surrounding, stone bridges and then the stunning waterfall itself. We had heard there were actually 3 waterfalls so we went to the very top first which had a swing and slide in. Shannon was the only brave one to try the swing whilst we happily paddled around and watched. It was now getting later in the day and the lower we got at each fall the more freezing the water got. By the final waterfall we had a quick dip for photos and then started heading back to catch the bus to our final destination Oslob.

As we wouldn't make the last ferry in time to Siquijor we decided to go to Oslob so that we could swim with Whale Sharks in the morning and then get the 10am direct ferry to Siquijor instead. The journey from Kawasan was long and we didn't arrive in Oslob until 8:30am. Luckily our bus dropped us outside a resort and we were able to haggle down the price of a shared room for the 3 of us. Phew our busy day was complete. We were tucked in bed by 10pm and I don't think any of us stirred at all through the night.Read more