day one hundred and six: january 13, 2016: davao to surigao
Based on my dad's friend's recommendation, we headed to our next stop: The Britannia Islands. It was about a 6-7 hour drive from Davao but we got to enjoy passing through little towns, palm tree forests, and the countryside. After sitting in the car for 6 hours, we were all excited to have finally reached our destination....but our original accommodations didn't live up to the photos that were online. We drove down a little more to another "resort" to check it out. As soon as we stepped out of the car, Jamie and I knew this was going to be another "no". There was a funky smell as soon as you got out of the car, it looked like it was still going through some major construction, and the rooms available were just not appealing. We continued down the road and found another "resort". Again, it looked like it was going through some construction and it wasn't obvious if it was actually open for business. The rooms were much nicer than the first two, not amazing but do-able. We stayed the night and said we would decide the next morning if we would stay longer.
Jonathan couldn't sleep and woke up at 4AM and snuck out of the room to take some photos of the stars. Lucky for him, the night sky looked pretty incredible. The southern cross was just above the horizon and low tide allowed him to walk out amongst the boats.
day one hundred and seven: january 14, 2016: britannia islands, hinatuan enchanted river, drive to surigao city
We booked a boat through the hotel to take us island hopping to the Britannia Islands. There are only 7 of them and you can only go on 4. It was a pretty quick island hopping trip since there wasn't too much to do on the islands. Jonathan and Jamie tried to kayak together but hardly made it out before they toppled over. Guess that's what happens when you try to fit two people on a one person kayak!
We headed south to check out the Hinatuan Enchanted River. We were pretty excited to have gotten there at the fish feeding time but were super underwhelmed when we realized it was a guy throwing food into the water for like 40 fish to some cheesy music about the river.
After the fish feeding, we hopped on two bangkas not knowing where the tour went. The one hour tour ended up taking us down the river out to the bay past some small homes on stilts and to a restaurant that had several fish pens. One held baby sharks and another some massive fish and stingrays.
