Luli Island

My Honda Bay Island Hopping Tour continued. After Starfish Island, Luli was our second island stop.

As mentioned (and pictured from a distance) in my itinerary story, the name "Luli" is a contraction of 2 Tagalog words lubog (sink) and litaw (appear or float). Conjugated in the contemplative form, the two words can be joined to form a descriptive phrase, that's also the idiomatic expression "lulubog lilitaw".

That expression describes this island's sandbar area that goes underwater (lubog) during a high tide, and visible (litaw) at low tide. Saying "lulubog lilitaw island" is rather long, so  they coined LuLi Island!

Who are "they"? Well, the owners of the island, Jun and Cely Marcelo? See the signage below..,

As you can see on the pic, we must have arrived when the tide was either halfway up or halfway down, because, the cottage and the feet of our tour guides were submerged in about knee-deep of the sea!

But whether the ebb tide was halfway down or up, there was sandbar enough for fun and frolic!

We walked that "shoal" out of curiosity.., and we noticed, that if the tide goes any lower, this water at right becomes a shallow lagoon hemmed-in by a mangrove forest further right. [see the picture below]

The "lagoon" though is too shallow even for grown up kids, but would be fantastic for little tykes!

And snorkeling on the slightly deeper portion (left) was also good enough, just like at Starfish Island. I even coined a theory that where there's food (natural or not), hungry schools of fish will eagerly come!

Is there an "unnatural" food that the fish here like to eat? Well yes, very much so! And that is the bread that we tourists bring to feed them, whether stale or fresh, hard or soft! Fish even like your junk food!

You of course know, or at least heard about this thing called "fish feeding", right? If you don't yet, well, be aware that it "thrillingly" goes hand-in-hand with the snorkeling (even scuba diving) here arounds!

That is in fact the reason, why in Puerto Princesa, especially along the route to Honda Bay, you cannot anymore ask (even beg) for old or stale bread from any bakery or store. We now have to buy them too!

But I have a secret to tell you (shhh, 'wag maingay, atin-atin lang)! I am not really fond of 'junkfood' but during fishfeeding activities, I ask from my companions, even spirit whole packs from their bags hehe, and the fish go gaga over them just the same! The salty Chippy or Wasabi-flavored Snacku? Oks lang!

Even Stik-O, whether smothered in the chocolate dip or not, is a crowd (aw school pala) favorite!

Hahaha! Anyway.., while snorkeling is fun, this thing is also a (if not THE) crowd-drawer on Luli Island!

It's a diving/jumping board that draws most visitors, at times you will have to queue up for your turn to leap from it! Then, you keep doing it, again and again and again! It's just a plank that protrudes from a roofed structure and is not even that 'challengingly high'. But people (include us) do enjoy the activity!

A note of advice (and advise na rin): be wary of companions who might get too excited to jump from that platform forgetting that they don't know how to swim. The water that you jump into (where I took that pic from) is about 6 to 8 or more feet deep, depending on the tide. You must swim after jumping!

The jumping board actually reminded me that a decade ago, there was already such a thing, but I can't recall if it was on this island. It was way too high though (maybe 20 feet or higher), so only few would dare to jump from it. The platform posts then were even made of just thin lumber! Now it is concrete!

Another cute thing to consider.., be cautious where you place your 'dry' things - whether that be on the sand (while snorkeling, board jumping, having pictorials) or at the tables and benches of your cottage.

If you are not watchful, sea water could reach them at high tide, and good if your things and valuables only get wet. Some of them (most commonly slippers) may actually float away with the water current!

Technique: if you're not going to have lunch at this island anyway (we had ours at Starfish Island), just don't rent a cottage. Leave your bags and other things at your boat under the watch of your boatmen!

Aha! And speaking of boatmen, never underestimate what they can do, aside from running your boat, assisting tour guides prepare lunch and/or watching you or your things. Many of them particularly the younger ones are already experts in capturing jumpshots or trickshots, using cellular phone cameras!

They not only take the shots but teach you too, even pose as model/subject while you take the shots!

I of course asked how they have become so good in this thing. One of them told me that they learned it just by watching tourists (their passengers) do it, and, many times they are asked to do the clicking!

That was a fun thing to learn "outside the classroom", and who would have thought that my 'teachers' in such an artistic but highly technical endeavor, would be the boatmen and tour guides of Honda Bay!

Just when we were all focused on the trick shots, our tour guides called, and it was time to move on!

Promising more #jumpshots and #trickshots, our guides herded us onwards to Cowrie Island.

But let's talk about that, and more, in my next story!