We got up late and then decided we would hire another motorbike and make the trip up to the rock pools. This plan was last minute and didn’t work out. Ben, our motor bike bloke, was out surfing someplace and nobody knew where, the XRM had been hired by another Aussie and was out for the month. One of his boys tried to find me another bike but to no avail. In the end I decided we would try for the rock pools tomorrow. On this day the electricity was going to be out for the full day while upgrades were being done to the lines. We were used to the electricity being a little intermittent, but out for the whole day was going to be a new one. 

Mangrove Village 

We met up with Scotty and decided we would make our way over to a mangrove village that Scotty and Byron had found in the first couple of days. We figured we could give out the rest of the clothes to the kids in the village. To get to the village we needed to cross the Sunset bridge. I had been wanting to do this since the first day we had arrived. The village consisted of ramshackle houses that were built over the top of a mangrove swamp. We had seen other such community dwellings dotted around the island. As soon as we started handing out clothes, kids and parents poured out of the houses to get some of the action. We stirred up quite a crowd and were able to find new owners for each of the garments no problem. 

The Cold Springs

Once we had handed everything out, we decided to see where the road went This took us on a big loop that would eventually put us back on Tourism Drive, the main road that connects La Luna to the other towns around the island. On our adventure we came across a cold spring. I am not sure how many foreigners had found this place, it appeared to be more of a locals type establishment. The sign was a small hand painted one nailed to a tree, and the access was a muddy, rocky track that led down the side of a steep hill. There were however a bunch of tourists from Cebu and Manila at the bottom of the track lolling around in the cool clear spring water that was pouring out of the side of the hill. There was a stack of ancient corral rocks around the pools, which made me wish I had brought my reef shoes. While I was sitting in the pool I was being nibbled by a school of small fish that were in the pool with us. I did wonder if they were tiny piranha’s. We chatted with the other tourists and heard all about their adventures. Once we were done being chewed on by large schools of tiny piranhas, we continued with our journey. Along the way we found a cable ski place. This place had a generator and was absolutely buzzing with electricity. Music was pumping, lights were on everywhere, the cable ski was working and there was a cafe, where mum decided she would have a coffee. We all chilled at the cable ski place while mum drank her coffee and watched the people trying to master the cable ski. 

Coco Frio

Shortly after leaving the cable ski place we came out onto Tourism Drive, from here we went in three different directions. Christine and I went to the wet markets to collect supplies for dinner. After we had collected some supplies we went in search of a bakery that sold coconut bread. We met up with mum walking along the street just out the front of the bakery. Byron had dropped her off and gone back to the villas. We then saw scotty heading to Coco Frio. We collected our coconut bread and converged on Coco Frio. Here they were also out of electricity and were only serving fresh coconuts. They did have a deep freezer with some coconut ice cream. I suggested they put the coconut ice cream into the whole coconut and serve coco frio. They looked at me like I was crazy, and gave us the coconut and the ice cream separately. We put some of the ice cream into the coconut, but there was so much coconut water that it didn’t really make an impact. We drank our coconut water, ate the ice cream and had the coconut cut in half so we could eat the flesh. After our Coco Frio without electricity experience we made our way back to Siargao Residency for a siesta. We re-heated the left over spaghetti and meat sauce for lunch before our siesta.

Afternoon Surf Session

In the afternoon we wandered down to the break out the front of the Harana Surf  resort and paddled out for an afternoon surf. Byron was using the white board, so I took the opportunity to push Christine on to a few waves. Once Byron was done surfing he gave me the white board and I caught a few more waves. I worked out a system where I would push Christine on to a wave, I would watch her surf and then paddle out to catch one of my own. In this way we surfed for a good hour and a half or so. Once we were all surfed out we took the boards back to Siargao Residency. On the way out we had asked Joel, the security guard, to see if he could hunt down an XRM for tomorrow’s trip out to the rock pools.  On our return he said that he had secured one, legend! 

A fire at Harana 

We didn’t mean to try to burn down the Harana Surf Resort, everything just came together in a perfect storm, allow me to explain.  We chopped some bits for dinner and then went with mum over to the Harana Surf Resort for a couple of entrees and some drinks. I had a San Miguel (light) this is one of the local beers in the Philippines, mum had one of the cocktails and Christine had a coconut shake. Unfortunately we now measured coconut shakes against a Coco Frio scale, which is probably not really fair, and this one came up a bit short. The fire crackers, large green chillies filled with cheese, wrapped in pastry and deep fried, were super spicy this evening, this made our noses run. I pulled out a packet of tissues so we could blow our noses. The waitress saw and brought us over a cup of tissues, I am sure that somewhere the chef was celebrating finding our breaking point. Mum pulled one of the tissues out of the cup which left the next one hanging out a bit. Now Harana is quite a trendy little joint with thatched roof, wood floors, and, due to the power shortage, an intimate setting with candles on all of the tables. It just so happened that one of these candles was not far from the tissues and with a gentle breeze coming in off the sea, the flame closed the gap and caught the tissue alight. I pointed this fact out to mum, who pulled the flaming tissue from the cup just before the others did like wise, she tossed it to the floor and stomped on it. One of the waiters saw the whole episode and whisked the offending tissue away in the blink of an eye. Thankfully, while we were at the Restaurant the power was restored. 

The full moon party 

After nearly burning down our favourite restaurant we returned to Siargao Residency and cooked dinner. We had found that this evening’s party was over at Reef Beach in an establishment by the name of Happiness, and here they were set to have a fire show starting at 9. We decided to have a look to see if it measured up to our fire show. The venue was only about 1km from the Siargao Residency, so we thought we would walk and enjoy the evening. In true island style the fire dancers would end up being an hour late. 

While we waited Christine and I danced a mix of Salsa and Bachata to the pumping beats that the Dj was playing. We were the only ones dancing, while we were dancing a stack of people filmed us, so there is a myriad of social media pages out there with Christine and myself dancing salsa and bachata to pumping music at a full moon party in Siargao. Now tropical islands also come with tropical rain storms, so far we had been fairly lucky and had reasonably good weather. This was about to change in a spectacular fashion. We were dancing and watching the shells move out in the garden, I am pretty sure I have mentioned before, but every single shell comes with a hermit crab in it, and they are constantly on the move. So in the hustle and bustle of the full moon party, small shells were wandering around the ground, over the paths and everywhere. When all of a sudden an intense rain shower forced us to take cover inside the venue. 

In a break in the rain shower the dancers finally came on, perhaps they were waiting for the rain. The dancers were spectacular and did the best they could considering the sudden wind and down pours that came through every few minutes. As the dancers were coming to the climax of their show a massive sustained down pour occurred. The dancers continued to perform taking shelter between each performance. There were three performs alternating so that the other two could take a respite from the rain between performances. They finished off with one massive fire spinning dragon thing that flicked flame everywhere. The wind carried it high over the building and around the surrounding area. I was wondering if this was how grass thatched roofs caught on fire in the middle of tropical thunderstorms. Once the display was done we opted to pile into a took took who charged us 150 php to traverse the 1km back to Siargao Residency. Scotty opted to walk, by the time we had piled out and paid the driver, scotty arrived, soaked through, right behind us.