Virgin Islands Bohol - Trip Report part 2
Monday, August 25th, 2008At around 11 we went on the small boat of Linaw Beach Resort and headed towards Virgin Island with another couple. The other couple was on the last day of their vacation. After a smooth boat ride of about an hour we reached the tiny Island south west of Panglao. Virgin Island is maybe 250 meters long and 60 meters wide at low tide. Perfect white soft sand and palm trees are all you can find when it is low tide.
The real stunning beauty of that Island comes with the outgoing water. An almost perfect semicircle of fine white sand develops. The whole area is surrounded by shallow sea-grass what gives the water a dramatic turquoise touch drifting into dark blue.
While Kim and I made a walk around the Island, his secretaries were sweating in the shade of big umbrella, the boys from Linaw brought for us. They also prepared the BBQ and we had a great Lunch.
After we ate, it was time to take another walk on the sandbar. Due to the seagrass, it was amazing how many creatures were crawling and swimming around at the sandbar. If you are not used to the sun make sure you got some sun-blocker with you, Even you life here it is advisable to use one. I definitely can’t describe the beauty of that spot and even the pictures here only show a fraction of this outstanding site.
Finally at 5 pm we started our way back. Due to the low-tide our boat was tucked and the crew had to jump of the boat more than once to push and pull us out of the shallow waters. That lead to a delay and when we finally reached the resort we could not go back to the Resort and ankerd some 500 meters offshore. The water was shallow enough to walk but there were millions of sea urgins surrounding us. Kim and I rejected to walk bare foot on this Minefield and our American friend from Japan stepped into two after 15 meters.
Kim suggested already half our earlier to drive down 5 minutes more to Alona Beach where it is easy to go right to the beach. Finally the boatcrew understood that we won’t go by foot through the urgin-minefield and another 20 minutes later we landed at Alona Beach where the Belgium Owner of Linaw Beach Resort picked us up with the van.
We came back at the resort around 8 pm and after a quick shower we had a decent dinner at the Bar there. The challenge during the next few hours was simple. To get hydrated again we tried if we can drink faster as the fridge can cool down the SMB and SML…. And we won, but at that point it was not so important anymore if the beer is ice-cold or not.
The next challenge was to wake up early the next day as we planned to head towards the tourist spots of Bohol….
Whenever you visit Bohol for acouple of days, don’t miss out on that trip.
cheers
Rhoody
I am usually not going to bed that early, so it was not really a surprise to wake up with the sun around 5:00 pm. In 
The first exercises are a review of skills each diver should have anyway, including cramp removal, alternate air-source use and tired diver tow. I had Dive-Master-Candidates who were worse. The next skills are about assessment, evaluating the situation and approaching diver on the surface. The Victim could be tired or even panicking. Being the panic diver is one of my favorite role in a rescue course. I love the face –expression of my students when 100 KG plus Equipment grasping them holding them and climbing on top of them. Followed by some underwater practice we had enough time to practice already how to surface an unresponsive diver from the bottom and had a small excursion before we returned to the resort for a lunch.
After lunch the sky became cloudy and the waves higher, so we spend the afternoon in the open air classroom and finished all Knowledge Reviews. Jean decided to go through his Final exam, and he passed it with flying colors. He was actually my first Rescue student who had 100% in the final exam. By 5:00 pm we finished the working part of the day and Jean went for another 15 km run. I was lazy like always and checked my mails ordered my dinner and went for a shower.
