Bohol and Moalboal

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Mar. 6

More sightseeing, relocating and diving

We rented a scooter and rode out to the Chocolate Hills.

The Chocolate Hills, as legend has it, resulted from giants fighting each other by throwing mounds of dirt and rocks, forming the hills. They are in fact remnants of dried up coral reefs now turned limestone.

In the dry season, they become quite brown, resembling chocolate. They are only slightly brown now, but still impressive to see.

We covered a lot of ground around Bohol on the scooter. It is the cleanest, greenest, and most lush island we have visited so far in the Philippines.

The following day was another relocation day. We drove, ferried and drove some more to get to our final diving destination. We added Moalboal to our itinerary to see the sardine run.

I am so glad we did. There are many tours you can book to snorkel with the sardines, but we opted to stay in Moalboal and get in a couple of dives.

The diving here is again amazing.

Our first dive was a wall dive at Tongo Marine Park, around 26 meters, 86 feet deep. It's a protected area and full of life.

Our second dive was around 20 meters to dive with the sardines. They are so cool. I would be enthralled with the coral when suddenly a cloud of silver darkness would come from above, below or from the side. It's a wave of thousands of sardines passing through, moving as though they are following some sort of choreographed routine. Passing through them is mesmerizing as you see nothing but sardines zigzagging all around you.

I rented a GoPro and have videos, but didn't have access to a card reader, so I will post videos another day.

After returning from our dives, we hopped into our transfer van and drove back to Cebu, where it all began.

Today in Cebu we just walked around, shopped, ate, and went for our last, inexpensive massage.

We fly out with a long layover in Taipei, so we will tour around there a bit, before our final leg back home.