Kayaking in Coron, Philippines Nov 2013

A few days into our Coron (Busuanga Island) trip, the typhoon had already knocked out everything so most tourist functions were down.  So Daisy and I, not wanting to burn another, took advantage of the chaos and decided to kayak away from it all for a day.  Around noon we rented a double sea kayak and pointed the tip for Coron Island.  I’d seen many pictures of what appeared to be fabulous rock for deep water soloing and even read a couple of blogs about it so I packed my shoes and was stoked for the prospect of reliving the Tonsai, Thailand experience.   This was also Daisy’s first sea kayaking experience so I was excited albeit a bit nervous to see her delight in the pleasure of the experience.  Surprisingly, she’s actually a kayaking natural.  It didn’t take her long to pick up the technique and did really well.  45 minutes and lots of rowing chants later, we got a close-up view of the famed rock formations.  We paddled right up next to one of the cliff faces for closer inspection and I quickly realized this wasn’t your typical limestone famed for tufas and pockets making great Deep Water Soloing.  This was coral rock similar to Okinawa, Japan.  The rock was incredibly sharp and pointy and to make matters worse, most of rock jutted out just enough that if you were to fall, you would still land on it underwater.  It had merely been cut away by years of waves thrashing about but the underwater rock still stood.  This complicated matters.  No worries though, there was still lots of exploring to do and we were having a great time.

Daisy says "Oooooh! What's that yellow thing?" I said
"That would be my mango."

A little bit of Deep Water Soloing

At the first stop, we carefully dodged all of the giant black sea urchins that plagued the waters as we stepped out of the kayak for a swim and preview of whatever underwater delights may exist there.  We also took the moment to enjoy some fresh mango we’d brought along.  Hm, afterthought, last time I visited an island by kayak for deep water soloing was in Thailand and my kayaking buds and I brought mango along for that trip too.  Anyway, we swam about for a bit then jumped back into the kayak to explore this particular cove we’d stumbled into.  I was on the lookout for DWS and Daisy was just enjoying the ride.  We honestly were having a blast.  We later found out we had discovered ………  lake.  We found there appeared to be some buildings on the shoreline and so we paddled further inland to investigate.  Here we found the entrance for the thermal lake.  After trying to mitigate Daisy’s parking technique of slamming into the shoreline not knowing how to brake, we pulled the kayak alongside the shoreline and hiked over the mountainside to discover a pier bidding entrance to the lake.  There happened to be a few people we had already met in Coron town on Busuanga island who were on an island hopping tour.  They were swimming and jumping off a rock so for a bit we joined them until I decided I wanted to climb higher to get a real DWS experience.  As I climbed higher and higher, I once again got a “no sir, it’s too dangerous” from the local island hopping guide.  I told him, “I know, but this is why I came to the Philippines.”  I guess he didn’t want to be liable for me so he turned around and swam out of the water as quickly as he could while calling the rest of his patrons to join him.  I was perhaps 30 feet off the ground at this point and most everyone had left the lake except Daisy and I.  I finally admitted this was too dangerous and held disastrous consequences if I were hurt and thus, I climbed back down to the normal launching spot and finished my climb with a victorious cannon ball splash into the lake below.

Sunset on the return trip

We swam about a bit longer and hiked back over the mountain to leave the lake as it was beginning to get late in the day.  After haggling with some locals about paying an entrance fee (we’d been misinformed about the price of the entrance fee.  This went something like him: “400 sir” us: “we don’t have 400, only 200” him: “yes sir, 400” rinse and repeat) we turned out to sea and headed back.  We timed it perfectly as the sun just started sinking low in the sky as we were about halfway through the journey back to Busuanga.  We became spectators to one of the prettiest sunsets I’ve ever seen and I was eternally grateful yet again for all of the wonderful things I’ve seen and done over the years.  We parked the kayak back at the resort and reveled in our job retelling one another our experiences from the day and laughed the night away.

Entrance to the lake