06 February 2014

Nicknamed “Sunburn island”, Sibuan is like something out of a dreamy beach romance.  White sandy beach, cobalt clear water, reefs right off the island and a couple of palm trees dotted here and there.  The military base building is the only sign of life here and life seems to creep past at a suitably slow island pace.

The snorkelling here was fantastic, colourful coral, turtles, all kinds of colourful fish and other interesting sea creatures.  It is close enough to swim back to the beach if you get tired and the visibility was good that day.

Favourite memory:

Due to the military presence of these islands (mostly for environmental protection and immigration law enforcement) it is common to see a couple of soldiers, with big guns, lying around on hammocks or patrolling the islands checking for illegal activity. One of the Swedish tourists was in his skimpy speedo (only) and demanded a photo shoot with the soldier and his large weapon, to which the soldier of course, happily complied. They were having a whale of a time doing a photo shoot of “the soldier and the speedo” – hilarious to watch!

Weird experience:

We were on our third snorkelling spot of the day around Sibuan when we heard two loud bangs in a row.  It was enough to get us to lift our heads out of the water suddenly and look around expectantly. Apparently, this area has a problem with fisherman using dynamite for fishing purposes and unfortunately, these explosions occur pretty regularly.  This particular one was apparently about two kilometres from us, but unbelievably loud for being that distance away.  There is a system to report explosions (time,date, location) in the area so that officals can investigate and hopefully catch the offending parties.

TIP:

Take suncream with you. It sure is hot, with little to no shady spots on the island. As a result, we spent most of our downtime at Sibuan in the shade of the speedboat.

See more about Scuba Junkie here.