Summer Sojourn at Bucas Grande

Early March, I received a message from my cousin that she is coming  home to the Philippines in April for  a few days. You see my cousin was born and raised in Canada and the last time we saw her was 13 years ago. This trip was long overdue.  We were all excited. We agreed to meet her in Surigao to be with her  and her friends to visit Bucas Grande.  I have long wanted to visit the place and this is the perfect opportunity.  I have long wanted to travel with my cousins, too!

Bucas Grande Group of Islands is part of the municipality of Socorro in Surigao del Norte. To get there, you must reach the port of Hayanggabon in Claver, Surigao del Norte to cross to the islands. Claver is an hour and a half land trip from Surigao City.

This is our home in Bucas Grande for four days. This called Cinnamon Island. There are cinnamon trees in this island. We get an unlimited supply of cinnamon tea.  After every island hopping trip, there is cinnamon tea waiting for us.

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Electricity was available from 5 PM to 7 AM the following day.  Who needs power when you are out  exploring the whole day? There is cellular signal in some areas of the island.

On our first trip out of the sea, we visited the Jellyfish Sanctuary. Bucas Grande is home to stingless jellyfishes.

We had to transfer to a paddle boat.

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There is only one passenger per paddle boat.  Here’s my cousin and her boatman.

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I love the boat ride towards the jellyfish sanctuary. The sea was calm and the air was cool.

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Trees surrounded us as we sailed towards the sanctuary.

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We were not allowed to swim with the stingless jellyfish because the lotion in our bodies can harm them.  We were allowed to touch them for a little while though.

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This is the white jellyfish. I would not have seen it had the boatman not pointed it out to me.

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This is the stingless jellyfish that is very visible from the boat. I am glad I was able to capture this photo as it swam near the surface.  I added some calligraphy into the photo.

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Bucas Grande has so much to offer.  We toured inside the Sohoton Cove. We  can only do this during low tide since we need to pass through this inlet.

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There is so much to see.

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We also swam inside the cave. I have no photo to show since my camera is not waterproof. In another activity, they went inside the a cave and the easier way out is to jump off a cliff.   It looked fun but I chickened out. There were so many people. I might cause delay to some people if I take time to prepare myself to jump.

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We had lunch in one of the islands.  We spend some time swimming here and taking some jumpshots.

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There were 11 of us on this trip.

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This island is beautiful.

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Oh, we ate fresh sea urchin, sea oysters that are attached to the rocks and other sea creatures whose names escape me right now. We saw this blue starfish.

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We had this seaweed for dinner.

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We also went spelunking inside the Crystal Cave. Stalactites and stalagmites are encrusted with crystals.

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Three of our friends went inside the Bolitas cave.  It was a narrower cave where there are a lot of rounded stones inside the cave.

We cooked our own food so when we ran out of food to eat, we went to nearest island with settlements.  This is Barangay Bay-ang in Socorro.

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We bought vegetables from a sari-sari store; meat and fish from a supplier’s house.

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This community has a fowl that is a cross between a rooster and a turkey. I do not know what this is called.

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We were able to visit Club Tara. This is the most expensive resort in Bucas Grande.

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Our humble accommodation was okay, too!

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We woke up to this view every day.

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Before we left the island, we had a special delivery! Fresh young coconut! Buko!

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Oh how I miss the island life! Some good things had to end to welcome new adventures. Can’t wait for the next beach trip!

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