Morning Surf Session

We sent a message to Flo to find out when everyone wanted to meet up for a surf. When we didn’t receive a response, we ate some breakfast and then made our way over to Ocean 101. When we arrived we found that Scotty and Flo had already gone out. We made our way to the same surfboard vendor who we had hired our boards from the previous day. He offered us 350php for two hours or 400php for permanent hire. We opted for the two hour hire, as the bloke was attempting to rent us the oldest most battered relics that he had on hand. These boards were full of holes, had weird fin configurations, one of the fins looked like it could have been a boat rudder in a previous life, and two of them had been snapped in half at some point in the past. I laughed out aloud when the surf board vendor warned us that we would be responsible for any damage done to the boards, I said that there was not much left that we could do, and that everything that could be done to theses boards already had. We paddled out on our war horses and even though they immediately started filling with water, like the porous sponges that they had become, we still managed to catch a stack of nice left handers that peeled out over the reef.  Once we could no longer keep our sponges afloat, we dropped them back to the vendor so that they could dry out, had a beach shower at Ocean 101 and then walked into Cloud 9. We found Scotty waiting for a cool drink in the cafe there. 

Emerald Ecco Village

After chatting with Scotty about the morning’s adventures we decided to walk back over the hill to our accomodation. On the way we checked out the buildings and blocks of land that dotted the headland at Cloud 9. Many of the places were fenced off with warning signs to keep out, the owners appear to have abandoned them after the hurricane and for various reasons had not yet returned to rebuild them. One of the places we checked out was Paul’s Emerald Ecco Village, the place where Flo and Richard normally stay when they are in Siargao. This was a little oasis with beautifully landscaped gardens, accomodation villas, a restaurant and massage studios. We wandered around the gardens enjoying the peace and serenity for a while.  

Scooter Hire

We were relaxing back at Siargao Residency when Byron decided that he would like to hire a scooter for the rest of our time here in Siargao. He wandered down to reception to see what was on offer, he found that you could hire a scooter for 350 php per day. Now the irony that you can hire a scooter, a high value piece of technology with multiple moving parts, for the same price as a surf board per day was not lost on me. 350 php per day was a lot cheaper than using the trikes, so we decided to hire one as well. Byron took to the scooter immediately, he went off to fill it with fuel and then went out to explore the island. We took our scooter and went to see if we could find the awesome fruit shop that we had seen the day before when we were coming back from the supermarket. Mum had taken a photo of the fruit shop as we had passed, and Christine had shown it to the guys at the front desk, they had given us an indication of which direction to head. 

We found the fruit shop and found that it was chock full of merchandise that was fresh and delicious looking. We picked up some mangos, some mangosteen and some other bits. By the time we arrived back at Siargao Residency had organised surfboard hire at 350 php per day. We were to collect them from a vendor in cloud 9 in the morning. A few moments later Byron called, he had been out exploring with Scotty, who Byron had managed to rope into the scooter hire shenanigans, when they had stumbled on the wet market. Christine and I immediately hopped on to our scooters and wet out to take a look. 

The Wet Markets

At the wet market we had finally discovered gold, the fruit and vegetables were not only fresh, they were also really inexpensive. The locals and vendors were all fascinated and amused that we would want to shop in the same place that they did. We picked up a load of stuff and then had to figure out how to carry it on the bike. We made our way back to Siargao Residency and used our spoils to cook up burritos for lunch. 

Sunset Bridge

In the evening we met up with Flow and Richard so that we could all have dinner overlooking the Sunset Bridge. We chilled, ate food, danced Bachata, chatted about the days events, made plans for the next day and watched the sunset close out over the bridge. What a spectacular evening.