Batangas-Puerto Galera Beach Breakaway

The schedule was to be in Manila by Saturday afternoon, Aug. 14, 2010... That was, as of the ticket purchased for me and labsy last year... Nonots was scheduled to be in Manila by that day as he prep for his work... But by I-don't-know-how, Papo's ship was in Batangas starting 1st week of the month and will still be there on that day and maybe onwards... So, by Friday, Aug 13, by virtue of authority of Mamo, purchased 6 tickets (her, me, labsy, nots, kels and neng) for a first flight from Davao to Manila the following day. After arriving in Manila, we went to the bus terminal in Buendia and went straight to Batangas to meet Papo...

Thanks to my PPA family, we had a place to crash for our stay in Batangas. We visited Papo's ship, through a lil' boat going there (since it was only on anchorage). The weather was fine that day so, not much worry on the waves as the boat stroll along... Well, we didn't get nervous but Mom did... :)) But Papo was there to comfort her, so we managed the ride...

We had a great time exploring the ship and meeting Papo's colleagues. We had a chance to visit the bridge and take a few pictures too... Had the best sunset view too... We stayed 'til 8:00 PM that night and went back to PPA to grab some rest, but we left Mamo with Papo to stay with him. It was a nice experience to be in Papo's ship, our first time. We saw how things were and somehow had to chance to be with our Papo at work...

Well, since we were there already, we took the chance to go to Puerto Galera, Mindoro and we had the greatest time... I guess, pictures tell that we did!

From Port of Batangas City, we took the one hour boat ride going to White Beach, Puerto Galera, Mindoro... We weren't so amazed, we had this "ah, ok" reaction when we arrived... But it never stayed that way for long... We had brunch first, then we rented an air conditioned room for a short time stay for Php 600.00 since we were scheduled to join the last trip in the afternoon going back to Batangas. There were no public bathrooms so we needed a room where we could change later after taking a dip in their very clear water... After taking our things to our room and had our brunch, we went off for an island hopping and snorkeling adventure... And that started the shift from the "ah ok" only to "wow, ok!" experience...

The island hopping boat rent was Php 1,000.00 including the snorkeling gears, plus Php 500.00 for the old underwater cam, which we doubted the results, but rented it anyway...  First stop was the snorkeling... When we reached the coral spot... There were smaller boats waiting for the trippers. We have options to use these smaller boats to drag us all over the coral reefs for a better and faster snorkeling trip for a fee of Php 200.00 per person... We turned the offer down at first, but then they offered to try it for free to give us the idea how'd it be... Well, after the try out, everyone wants to go through the whole adventure and we all agreed it was worth it!

After snorkeling came the island hopping, the sand on the other islands were better and the water was so so so clear and we had the best dip... it was perfect and we own the island!

After the island hopping, we went back to our room, got dressed, then confirmed our trip schedule back to Batangas. We stroll for a bit and went for a snack and then waited for our ride back to Batangas...

Whew! that was a fun adventure, nice place, good accommodation and great family and friends to experience the adventure with, and that made the difference... :)