Once again we woke up early to swim with the sardines. This time Jives decided to stay on the shore. There were thousands more sardines this morning, huge billowing clouds swimming closer to the surface than before. There were less people too which may have affected the fish numbers as well. I was so glad I decided to go out again. It was truly magical, with the scuba-diver bubbles coming up amongst the silvery fluttering fish. We then headed back to the room to have coffee. 

After a while we headed back out in search of breakfast. We settled on a place in town for breakfast that had a pride flag out front and was covered in plants! We were welcomed by a super friendly lovely lady and sat at wooden stools. The ceiling was covered in straw hats and it reminded me of the place we had stayed at in Gili Air in Indonesia. Jives got the “American breakfast” and I got a tuna club sandwich. The lady and young man working there were so nice, and it was a lovely setting. 

We then headed back to our hotel and camped out on the beach behind our accommodation for the rest of the day. We had snacks and beers on the beach, sitting in our new “towel” tye dye shawl we bought to use as a towel and multipurpose beach blanket. 

We saw a sea turtle on our first swim and it led us all the way to the coral wall before swimming off into the abyss. We then sat on the shore. I could see what I thought was a sea turtle’s head popping up in the water, so we went back in the water to investigate and it WAS a sea turtle, in fact it was TWO sea turtles. We watched the turtles feed on corals for quite awhile before heading back to shore. Not long afterwards a lady in the water beckoned to us that she saw another sea turtle! We had seen six turtles in a matter of two days, although as Jives pointed out some of the turtles might have been the same turtle. Either way, great success! We went and had dinner at our hotel restaurant. I had another margarita pizza and Jives had lasagna. The candle light was lovely. We then sat on the beach as the sun dipped below the horizon.We woke up at 630am once again to catch the sardines swimming along the shore. I wanted Jives to experience what I had the morning before, but it was not meant to be. There were so many people swimming with the sardines that we couldn’t get close without getting tangled in their life buoys and tied up sandals attached to the buoys…. The tour groups were everywhere. We tried swimming but got yelled at to move away. Just as we finished moving…. A boat yelled at us to move a different way…. We were trapped floating between two boats and buoys all tangled in ropes and with the stupid floating shoes of the other snorkelers… We angrily got out of the water and headed back to our room to pack our bags and have a coffee. I am glad that I had the lovely experience the day before snorkelling with the sardines in relative peace, because if this had been my only sardine experience, it would have been sour. 

We had breakfast at the hotel restaurant. I had a veggie omelette and Jives had the American breakfast. My omelette was a bit boring, and had carrot and long melon in it.

We then finished packing and headed to reception for 11:15am to meet our driver. 

The drive back to Cebu should have taken three hours, but it took two as our driver drove like a man possessed. He would speed up and pass cars almost exclusively in school zones. At one point he drove off into the mountains to take a short cut and tried to pull over three times. I got spooked that he was going to try and hold us up for money… so I sent a screen grab of our location to our family. It was very odd behaviour. Everything turned out okay, but I had seen a lot of missing people signs in Moalboal and I got really scared. 

The last hour of the trip was stop and go traffic in Cebu itself. I turn by turn guided our driver through Cebu and we arrived alive at our hotel. We jumped out of the car on the road and ran to our hotel as the driver waved enthusiastically and sped off at top speed. I was glad to be back on solid ground. I messaged our family to say that we had arrived alive and we headed up to the reception desk on the 9th floor. 

Check in was easy peasy and we headed up to the 12th floor to our room. The keycards were wooden, which I had never seen. The room was lovely and giant! It had a full kitchen with a stove, large fridge and cooking implements. There was a large seating area with a circular table and a huge bed. We placed out cartoonishly small bags in one corner and relaxed for a bit before heading to the ground floor to find a grocery store. The hotel was sort of a part of a giant mall, so the ground floor had many shops and restaurants. We got a bag of chips, two beers , instant coffee, razors and hand sanitizer. The bill came to 300 pesos, so cheap.

We tried to go to the pool, but it was full of people drinking in a large group and blocking the entrance to the pool itself. The one empty chair in the pool area had someone’s dirty socks on it… we hung around for a little bit, but couldn’t even find a spot to sit comfortably on the ground. 

We then headed back to the room to relax as the restaurant we wanted to try did not open until 5pm. We played some pictionary as we had some snacks and waited. At 5:00pm we headed to the restaurant just down the street called “Boosag”. I ordered three vegetarian dishes in a row that they did not have. The server kept suggesting beef or pork dishes. I eventually successfully ordered some tuna belly and Jives ordered a traditional dish “Rellenog tallog” which was an eggplant stuffed with crab and veggies. We ordered garlic rice to share and some green tea that really just tasted like jasmine. The food was okay, but tasted like fast food. 

We then went to an ATM to get cash for the island we would be staying on for the next few days. We retreated to our bed and watched the people’s choice awards on T.V. “Wicked” seemed to win everything.