Trekking Sumilon Island

One of the inclusions of a day tour package at Sumilon Bluewater Island Resort is trekking, which my friends and I decided to do upon arrival at the island.

As we decided to not get a guide, we initially got lost because we did not see the signage that signified the start of the trek.  We only realized this when we were already about twelve meters away from the resort and noticed that the dusty road was frequented by locals, not tourists.  One man's reply to my inquiry of where we were confirmed my suspicion so we headed back to our starting point.  

After seeing this signage, we started our trek knowing that we were now on the right track.

As we were on higher ground, the view of the sea and land below was breathtaking.

There's this wooden beach too where we stayed for a while to rest.

My favorite shots are these:

The highlights of this trek is climbing the island's watchtower and seeing its baluarte, which I will blog about later.

The hour-long trek of Sumilon Island was a fun activity but it was also disappointing.  Why?  Because I thought I would be able to see birds or some interesting plants but I did not.  The trees I saw were mostly Ipil-Ipil.

I did find one interesting plant though and heard bird calls.

Hopefully, Bluewater Sumilon Island Resort's management would think of planting more interesting plants and naming them for reference purposes so trekking guests would have a better experience than just sweating and seeing the tower and baluarte.

And We're Off to Sumilon Island

Heaven must be smiling down on us during this particular trip as when we arrived in Bluewater Sumilon Island Resort's Bancogon briefing area, we were told that the 9:30 AM second trip has not yet departed.  Hurrah for us as this means we would be able to enjoy the island at a longer time.

After paying the Php1,500.00 day tour fee, we were briefed by a resort staff on the inclusions of our package and on the activities that awaited us in the island.  As the boat was waiting for us, the staff did all this in a rush but we did not mind.

Here's a photo of where we had our briefing taken while onboard the boat that would take us to Sumilon Island.

And here are more photos of the scenery I took during our thirty-minute boat ride.

It was a good day to be out in the sea.  The water's a vivid blue, tempting us to go on a dip.

But of course, we had to wait until we reached the island, which could already be seen from where we where.

Despite the good view, I must say that there's one thing that annoyed me while onboard the boat.  Oh, make that two.  One was that the boatmen where not service-oriented at all that they did not even offer to carry our bags and some even continued sitting, just watching us when we boarded the rocking boat.  Lastly, I did not like the fact that we were in the boat along with the resort's supplies.  Read that as seeing chicken and other meat in an uncovered thermochest.  Ugh!

Here's a photo of the boatmen unloading the resort's supplies when we docked in the island.

Cebu City to Sumilon Island

This trip actually happened from May 17 to 19, 2012 but I only get to blog about this now as in June, I was in the US for a business trip and when I came back to Cebu, I got busy with all my pending work so my blog was again relegated to the sidelines.

To continue, Sumilon Island is located off the southeast coast of the Municipality of Oslob, Cebu.  It is a three-hour drive from Cebu City.  

As my four friends were all yet to arrive from Manila via Cebu Pacific arriving at 5:40 AM, I had to first pick them up at the airport.  We then rode a taxi going to South Terminal where we had to pay Php10.00 for the  taxi to enter the terminal and once inside, a terminal fee of Php25.00 per person before getting on a bus that will take us to Sumilon.

Originally, we wanted to take a Ceres bus but since it's at the farthest end of of the terminal and we were not too keen on lugging all our bags getting there, we settled for Sunrays'.  

Here's a photo of the bus.

Special thanks to the driver and the conductor who had been very patient with us  and our questions.  We were actually the last ones to board off the bus and I initially thought we were lost but they assured us otherwise.  They even dropped us off right in front of Bluewater Sumilon Island Resort's entrance and allowed me to take a picture of their bus before speeding off.

For those who are wondering about our expenses, here's a breakdown:

Taxi from the airport to South Terminal:  Php500.00 for the five of us.
South Terminal taxi entrance fee:  Php10.00 for one taxi
South Terminal passenger terminal fee:  Php25.00 per person
Sunrays bus fare:  Php155.00 per person
Total:  Php282 per person

Please note that normally, taxi fare from the airport to the City would cost only Php300 but since we insisted on taking just one taxi, we agreed to pay the driver Php500.  It's still cheaper than taking two taxis.