My husband and I woke up at dawn on day 3 of our honeymoon for a full day of dolphin watching, snorkeling, our complimentary 1-hour full body massage and our last romantic dinner in Eskaya.
It was a crisp beautiful morning. The sunrise painted the sky in hues of pink and violet. Pao and I walked to the shoreline and was surprised to see that our boat is one that could fit 15 but would only have 5 passengers for the day: the two of us, two boatmen and a waiter. Yup, a waiter. Since we were having our breakfast on the boat, the F&B Manager sent a waiter along with our picnic basket.
After a few minutes of chugging out into the open water we spotted a pod of dolphins being chased by other boats with tourists out for dolphin watching. We saw around 10 dolphins darting out of the water then would disappear. It was a game of cat and mouse between the dolphins and around 10+ boats. The collective sound of the engines broke the serenity of the morning and we were afraid the noise was scaring the gentle dolphins away. We spotted the pod a couple more times before they swam off fast towards Pamilacan Island.
We told our boat captain to head off to the nearby island of Balicasag for snorkeling. The waters surrounding that rocky island were crystal clear that we could see the coral and fish below unaided. The townsfolk of Balicasag showed our boat captian where he can safely moor. Then it was time to tuck into breakfast.
Our attentive waiter opened the picnic basket to reveal fine china, crystal and silverware from the resort. He proceeded to take out cups, saucers, teaspons, the matching jar of sugar and the accompanying small jug of fresh milk. From one thermo pot he poured coffee for me and from another thermo pot he poured hot chocolate for Pao. As we sipped our beverages he took out two sleek glass tumblers for freshly squeezed orange juice. We had to stop our industrious waiter from plating our food. He was taking the bacon, scrambled eggs, toast and fresh fruit out of the styro boxes they came in and was about to put them on white china plates. We insisted on just eating them out of the boxes with our hands. We felt compelled to go with our outdoorsy environment.
We didn't finish our breakfast as the sea was calling out to us already. At 9am the sun was already coming out strong for perfect lighting conditions under the water. We took a smaller paddle boat with one of the locals to bring us out to the reef. There we marveled at the beautiful coral and fish feeding off the bread we brought along.
We enjoyed snorkeling for about an hour. Each time we surfaced it seemed that more and more tourists were coming to the island. We decided to go before it got too crowded.
The nearly hour-long ride home gave us time to finish off our breakfast and catch up on our sleep. Even as our boat would jump the little waves it crested, our good waiter would still help pour our beverages and bring out our food. 5-star on-the-boat picnic-ing was quite interesting.
The 5-star experience did not end there. As we were approaching Eskaya's beach I could spot another waiter, well, waiting for us. He met us with a warm welcome back to the resort and asked if we enjoyed our dolphin watching and snorkeling while he offered us each a cold towel and a glass of cold water to refresh ourselves from the trip. Amazing service.
Still full from our heavy breakfast we decided to go back to our balai, catch up on sleep and skip lunch. Sort of. We ended up eating "lunch" at 3pm if you could still call it that.
Awake and rested we headed over to Eskaya's newly opened spa - the Handuraw Spa for our 1 hour full body massage. But wait, there's more. Before our actual treatment, we spent some time in the steam bath first. After our very relaxing massage we tried out the sauna and the jacuzzi. There were cups of fresh tea waiting for us when we emerged from the spa. Such a wonderful experience.
Dinner for our last night at Eskaya was set up at the garden overlooking the sea. Our candle-lit liempo dinner was under the stars and we were dutifully attended to by two waiters. One of them was named Lord. Oh yes, Lord was there! :P
I was so stuffed that I was just blanking out in front of the TV in the balai. We rested early to make the most of our last day in Eskaya.
(to be continued....)
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