Starfish Island

As promised in my previous post, here I am telling you my notes on the 3 islands we visited during our "Honda Bay Island Hopping Tour" - on a gloomy day, at times drizzly, yet memorably fun just the same!

My view as we approached the docking area of our first island destination: Starfish Island..,

Planned activities here were snorkeling, frolicking on the sand, pictorials to the max (of course la!), as our tour guides and boatmen prepared "the" buffet lunch! They cooked rice etc., already on this island!

We all went snorkeling anyway.., and oh boy was it worth the experience, even on shallow waters!

And even if it was a gloomy day, it was fun to see a bounty of live underwater creatures swim with us.

A glimpse of 'the reason' why this place is called "Starfish Island". There are (still) many of them here!

This kind of starfish may (probably) have been the inspiration for Patrick Star. Do you even know him? Yep, the bestfriend of SpongeBob SquarePants! Then again, there are many species that look like that!

One of our guides told me those are usually called "chocolate chip sea star or "horned sea star".

As before, there still are a number of big colorful fish 'roaming around' even at waist-deep of water..,

Our cameras/phones couldn't give justice to the actual scene, so I tried tweaking the above photo..,

Aside from the attractive blue, this fish also have green, yellow and orange hues around its body!

These are not the cute tiny kinds. The biggest I saw in this group was more than the size of my palm.

Ah btw, if you look at the arrows I drew, there are other kinds of fish foraging with the blue ones!

On shore, we saw this..,

A boatman told us it was left there by children after playing/toying with it. This was a younger starfish, only slightly bigger than my palm. But good enough there was only this one that we saw on the beach.

Maybe tourists probably already learned (or properly briefed?) to leave these creatures wherever they are (their habitat) on the island. I say that because, 10 years ago on this very spot, you would see a lot of these innocent starfish arranged in lines, circles or various formations, by visitors who took photos, played with them, thereafter just leaving them on dry sand to crawl back to the water if they still could.

Anyway, we gravitated to near our open cottage since a guide told us lunch would be in 10 minutes.

I saw this cage laid on the sand. It was full of movement on the inside.., OMG seafood extraordinaire!

A husband-and-wife tandem standing nearby told us it was their cage, and everything inside it was for sale. I asked and was given permission to take pictures, but my salivating 'family' wanted to buy them!

I said we already have a buffet lunch being prepared by our tour guides, and that usually is more than enough. But as if to overpower my declaration, the wife spilled some of the live creatures on the sand!

Immediately, they started moving in various directions, obviously trying to flee from becoming human lunch! Note: that lobster at upper right of photo was also alive. It just fell on its back when dropped!

The younger ones in my group started excitedly shrieking and it created some kind of a commotion or spectacle in all of us! I just knew it.., next thing I saw, all those were already on the weighing scale. Da!

Note too: when these crustaceans walk, they do so backwards and it's fascinating to watch!

Even the "alimasag" was not spared! I think my group got a sampling of every kind of crustacean!

No this was not just for selfies and pictorials, but for real. As in off to the cooks all of those went! Yes, the vendor stalls on this island also offer to cook (for a fee, of course) the food that you buy or bring!

Here's a cute little topic..., as we were just about done choosing those delectable crustaceans, one of our guides came to tell me (whispering) that we shouldn't buy those from the husband-and-wife team. Aw, too late, the transaction was just consummated! But I still asked why. She said 'the couple are not members of the vendor association'; the produce they sell could be more expensive; and we wouldn't know where those came from; and that there are stalls (she pointed to us) where we should buy them.

Hmm, we still checked out those stalls, and that got us into comparing, reflecting, pondering.., for the price, those we got from the husband and wife were just a little bit cheaper by 5 to 10 pesos. And as to "where those came from", alangan namang sa bundok o kapatagan nanggaling ang mga yun! Duh!

Ah, we thought that was localized micro vendor politics at play, so we didn't pay much attention to it.

Here's more: as if to add salt to the injury (of the vendor association), the wife still came following me with a big fat "mud crab" (alimango) in her hand! She told me she overheard my earlier conversations (with my companions) that we prefer these bigger plumpier "mud crabs" over "sea crabs" (alimasag)!

Da! Who could resist that thing, right? So we also took it, probably all the more to the consternation of the stall owners who are members of the vendors' association! At least there was no 'alimango' at the stalls, so I did not really feel that much "offensive" or "disrespectful" to the vendors' association hehe!

But I was sure, in their hearts and minds they were cursing this manang who was not their member!

See the upper-left-edge of the pic above again. Those were some of our companions at our cottage. And beyond that, at the edge of the sand, was the boat of the husband-and-wife tandem peddling their produce. Where I stood to take that pic was at the stalls of the vendors' association (behind camera)!

The beauty of these my dear readers, is/was learning from outside the classroom! A classic example of "market forces at play". And live! Economics, Business Administration, Marketing, Sales, Business Strategy, Product Positioning, Consumer Behavior, Cartels, Cooperativism, Competition, etc., etcetera!

Anyway and by the way.., it's not as if we did not patronize the vendors' association stalls. We did!

Those were some of the things sold at one of the stalls. Some were still alive, some not, some iced!

We got more lobsters from this stall as the ones we got from husband-and-wife were not enough..,

Yes we also bought more squid and shrimps - they have lots in stock but they only display so much to keep the rest 'still fresh'. There was octopus, clams, conch, oysters, lato, etc., etc., even sea urchin too!

Of course we did not (could not ) taste them all - since there are those that even looked creepy to us!

Most notably, my younger companions excitedly took pictures of, but swore they won't eat this..,

It's a kind of crab, we knew that, but to them, it looked so fancy 'kawaii' like a toy or a novelty gift item!

The tindera said "masarap yan sir". Immediately, a 15 year old bruha beside me shrieked a very urgent, even commanding "no tito, we can't eat that"! And a chorus of young voices behind us chimed-in with a similar 'autocratic' tone saying "that's too cruel"! Gino-o ko! Okay, I succumbed, and rested my case!

Note: all crabs were very much alive when I took the photo. The one at left was even trying to escape! Their colors in the wild (at sea) are just really like so - from pink, to purple, to brown - with polka dots!

Fastforward.., and our buffet lunch was served.., I am out of words.., just see these pictures!

Delectable fares, sumptuous lunch, to say the least! But you would smile with me if I tell you that I had fun imagining how our guides whipped things up to become such a "venerable banquet" on the beach!

Examples: I told myself "ahh, that pork belly must have been marinated yesterday and placed in one of the big styropore boxes that traveled with us"; "I wonder where they cooked that chicken afritada"; the 'pakwan' was bought at the fruit stall by the highway where we stopped, but how did it become chilled when served"; "I saw both guides grilling the fish and the meat, with the help of the beach stall owner"! But who makes those colorful garnish? Do tour guides also train to make flowers out of tomato? Aliw!

Yes totally aliw.., a feast for all my senses and big belly! After which, I needed to siesta like a pig!

Eto na.., just when our younger "wards" were about to go back to snorkeling, the tour guides told us to wrap up and prepare to re-board "Dianeton", our Boat No. 18. I immediately saw dismayed faces! One even reasoned that it was only 1PM hehe.., and the tour guide said "it's already 1PM and we still have 2 islands to visit, but don't worry, you can snorkel on the next island". That appeased the disgruntled!

One last look at the sandbar of Starfish Island as we walked to board our boat (the one in the middle).

That end beyond the boats is where we did the snorkeling thing. That's a mangrove area to the right of the sandbar, and our guides told us, that is where some of the fish lay and hatch their eggs. Coolness!

But we needed to 'move on' and head to the next one. So this was my final look at Starfish Island..,

I glanced at my younger companions, some still wearing their snorkels. Okay, 'naka-move-on' na yata!

The thought of 'Luli Island" probably excited everyone. So let us go there next!