Palawan Boat Tours

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It’s impossible to go to Palawan and not do boat tours. The Philippines are made up of 7,641 islands most of them accessible only by boat and some of them unvisitable. My trip took me to the province of Palawan which consists of two main islands, Palawan Island, which is famous for El Nido and Busuanga Island, which is famous for Coron and it’s diving. The boat tours of Palawan are all similar in price, the food served for lunch, the boats and what you expect to get out of it, what changes are the sights you see and the people you do share the experience with.

Boat Tour #1

The first boat tour I did was in Coron with two Germans I met in the hostel and two Chilean girls they had met earlier in their trip. The day before I joined them in renting a scooter and exploring the island. Really we rode to a beach and hung out there for the day. Coron wasn’t as easy to explore as I had anticipated, it didn’t have many beaches and the ones that did exist were an hour’s drive on a scooter. That day I almost wasn’t going to join them because it was the day after getting really sick from scuba diving, but I had nothing planned so when he came back and asked me I said yeah. I’m greatly glad I did because I spent that whole day with them and they organized the boat tour for the next day. Instead of joining a prearranged boat tour, they opted to do a private one with the five of us. I will never do a private boat tour in the Philippines again. Eventually what we saw would make up for the awful beginning.

First, we were asked to be ready by 8am, they didn’t come to get us until 9:25, the boat once we got there was the smallest boat possible with enough room for 6 people and no room to stand up. The diving boat I spent two days on was four times the size of that one and I got sick. I was anxious and nervous about spending the day on that little one. Once we were on the boat we didn’t leave for 45 minutes and when we finally left the “guide” explained to us what our plan for the day was specifically stating that we were going to the first place because it wasn’t going to be crowded when we got there it was like a feeding frenzy of boats. I was still annoyed at how the morning started so I said, “I thought you said it wasn’t going to be crowded.” He changed course and went to a different stop called “skeleton wreck,” aptly named because it’s the shell of a former ship. Even though I had just spent two days diving wrecks I was still really impressed, it reminded me of something out of Pirates of the Caribbean. Another one of the stops took us to the most beautiful and colorful coral reefs I had ever seen. It looked as if the colors were painted onto the coral: deep blue, neon yellow, orange and purple on shapes I’d never before seen in my life. It still doesn’t seem real to me. 

The boat tours provide lunch, it’s part of the package. One of the German guys (they were both named Stephan, but spelled differently)was the first to try the fish and said something was wrong with it, I tried it and as soon as it touched my mouth I spit it out. It tasted as if it was cooked in gasoline, it was inedible. Luckily there was rice so I just stuck to that. The last two places we visited were incredible: twin lagoons, which is what it sounds like and lake Kayangan. Twin lagoons was crowded, but beautiful, Lake Kayangan was beautiful and empty. It’s unique because it’s a freshwater lake with about 20% salinity that’s connected to the sea. I don’t really know how that works. While we were there we watched a guy lose his drone. We were in the water when he set it off, then sometime later he frantically walked to the other side of the u-shaped boardwalk and then back to the other side, we could tell something was amiss, by the time we get out of the water he still didn’t have it. I’m certain he still doesn’t. The Coron boat tour may have started off badly, but every place we went to was worth seeing, which made it completely worth doing. 

Boat Tour #2

The second boat tour I signed up for was in El Nido and organized by my hostel. El Nido is the most famous area of Palawan and is situated in the North East of the island. It’s about a four-hour ferry ride from Coron. Four boat tours exist in El Nido: A, B, C, D, but I did the hostels tour which was a combination of places from the four. It was just called the “southern tour,” they had another called the “northern tour”. The hostel was right on the beach no further than 10 ft (3m) at high tide, so to get to the tour boat all we had to do was walk straight out for about 200 feet (65 m), then take a small dingy that felt as if it was going to capsize to the boat. From the onset, it felt more organized and the guide actually guided, he let us know what was happening while providing the energy you’d expect from someone in his position. The El Nido tour took us to a lot more beaches than the Coron one and at two of the stops, we played beach volleyball. The lunch was fantastic, the fish was a giant tuna; I allowed myself to eat it only after watching people’s safely swallow it. The most memorable place we visited was called “snake island,” two islands connected by an s-shaped sandbar in the middle. All the islands and places you visit on the tour have gimmicky eye-catching names like, “helicopter island”, “starfish island”, “barracuda lake” (even though there are no barracudas in it).  

Boat Tour #3

The third and last boat tour I participated in was in the town of Port Barton. Port Barton is located on the west coast of Palawan about a four-hour drive from El Nido, it’s a smaller and sleepier version, it’s not very developed and has a tremendous amount of potential for the future. If I could, I would open a hostel there better than the one I stayed at. The boat and the captain were the best out of any of the other boat tours, the boat was huge with an upper deck that had a slide leading into the ocean and the captain/guide was perfect at his job. Toward the end of the tour I spoke to him and he told me that he used to live in Manila, but made the move to Port Barton four years ago because his son in law bought some land and opened lodging. They owned the hostel I was staying in and the boat we were on. His son in law needed help so he made the move; he’d never lived by the beach before and couldn’t ever imagine living in a city again. His energy and happiness were easily discernible, you’d never think he’s a retired police officer from Manila. The tour was fantastic, I saw a sea turtle, some starfish briefly, the snorkeling was amazing and so was the lunch. There happened to be a lot of Spanish speaking people on the boat, maybe 1/3 of the people from different Spanish speaking countries, one guy was from the city next to where I lived in Spain. It’s always fun having the opportunity to speak Spanish again and it’s good to know that I still can. 

Going to Palawan and doing the boat tours is something you must do, it’d be impossible to see the islands and snorkeling spots without them. I could have done more in El Nido and Coron, but I wanted to limit myself to one in each of the locations. While I had an amazing time and met awesome people, I prefer exploring on my own rather than signing up for a tour. I don’t like the feeling of being herded to spots with hundreds of other tourists, having only a finite amount of time and then being herded to the next spot. I like the independence of choosing where to go for however long I want to stay.