Alona Beach – Off Travelling Together

An easy journey here, just across a causeway!

After a couple of days in a town it was lovely to relax round the pool at Alona Swiss, owned by a Swiss-Italian chap called Raphael who began as a dive instructor and loved Panglao too much to leave!

There are just around 15 rooms and we had a spacious bungalow with all mod cons and a terrace outside with a small kitchenette we didn’t use, but it was useful for the fridge and the water dispenser.

In 1970, a movie called Esteban was filmed here when the beach was just a beach. When Filipinos came to visit the famous movie location, it was named Alona Beach after the starring actress Alona Alegre who was fondly remembered by the locals. Just ten years ago it was still a sleepy place favoured by divers, but has recently become quite commercialised, although most buildings are no more than 3 storeys and the tallest structure in town is the MacDonalds sign!

We were just a 10 minute walk to the restaurants, shops and main beach … close enough for convenience … far enough away that we couldn’t hear the nightlife!

Here are some views of Alona Beach over our stay …

Unfortunately, as we arrived, Joanna came down with a cold, so we spent a really relaxing couple of days on Dumaluan Beach, a far more sleepy spot that was backed by a couple of resorts and palm trees with powdery white sand and shallow sparkling blue water.

We’ve eaten in several spots including another Buzzz Cafe, run by Bohol Bee Farm, and a couple of the bbq places along the front. Chris has managed veggie stir fries and a couple of pizzas!

There have also been sundowners, once in town …

… and again at Equation Bar on Danao Beach …

… and while it was too cloudy to see the sun actually set, the light was fab and we got some great pics.

As you will see we’ve had mixed weather, mainly sunny but some cloud, especially later and a few drops of rain but it has always been warm, and if the sun had shone all the time, it would have been jolly hot!

On our last day, Joanna was feeling much better so Raphael organised a boat trip to Balicasag Island which is surrounded with coral protected by a marine park. The morning dawned a bit grey but we just hoped it would brighten. It was low tide, so we crossed the rocks to reach our bangka, spotting little starfish in the shallow water.

Once aboard, a pole was used to push us into deeper water before starting the deafening engine.

The crossing took an hour and the spray combined with drizzle … but we reasoned we would be even wetter once in the sea! By the time we arrived the rain had stopped and the sun was trying hard to come out.

From here on you will just have to imagine as we left all our gear safely in the dry and complete with masks, flippers and life vests, we boarded a much smaller bangka, the size of a canoe. Our guide paddled us out to the reef and we entered the water. The snorkelling was easy as we could just hold on to the outriggers of the boat. Our guide had fitted a large round wooden paddle to his foot, and used this to propel the boat along so we could watch a number of huge turtles eating grass on the seabed. They seemed totally oblivious to us floating above. I had been quite apprehensive as to how we would get back in the boat without steps, but the guide braced himself against the boat and we stepped up onto his thigh to get aboard! Next he paddled round to a different spot and this time there was coral with fish of all colours and sizes swimming between. We stayed in the water watching for ages, but eventually we all started feeling a bit chilly so we got out. We all agreed it was the best snorkelling experience we had ever had as we had never seen turtles like that before and the fish and coral were stunning. Chris is seriously thinking about a Go-Pro for next time!

On the way back we stopped at Virgin Island, apparently now called Isola Di Francesco, which has a long exposed sand bar at one end and a religious garden at the other with a collection of rather kitch Catholic statues.

Whale watching had been another possibility, to see huge whale sharks but I read some negative comments and we pleased we had decided against it when we saw this …