littleladybythesea: A glimpse of Pinamuntugan Island

Summer time again and of course except from Christmas, this is my favorite part of the year. Well, I started my beach trips this year as early as January. Don't worry, I'll post them as soon as I can. :)

Going back, in April 2016, me and my siblings along with a close friend from Manila decided to have a vacation at our hometown, Sto. Domingo, Albay. Since it’s summer, our main goal in this vacation is to explore one of the virgin beaches of the province which is Pinamuntugan Island, a small island in Bacacay, Albay.

Before anything else, let me share this beautiful photo of Mayon Volcano from Legazpi Airport before we left.

How to get there:
If you're coming from Legazpi City Airport, you can either ride a taxi, jeepney or bus. The
taxi will take you directly from the airport to bacacay port. If you want to ride the jeepney or bus, get a tricycle to take you from the airport to Legazpi City Central Terminal. It will cost you Php30.00 - Php50.00 if I'm not mistaken. From the terminal, just look or ask for buses or jeepneys going to Tabaco City. Ask to drop you off going to Bacacay proper then ride another tricycle or jeepney going to the port.

In our end, we rented a car from Sto. Domingo going to Bacacay Port which is only 15 -20 minutes away from our house. We brought packed food and drinks because there were no vendors at the island. Once we got to the port, a lot of people offered a boat ride to the island (this is also where you will go if planning for a Vanishing Island trip). After a few chats with different boat owners, we decided to go with a boat that can accommodate up to 30 people. It's quite big for 10 people, seriously. Cost of the boat for a whole day trip is Php 2,700.00 and will wait until end of day. Other boat owners gave us a rate of Php3,000 so this is cheaper.

We traveled from the port to the island for an hour and believe me, it was a wonderful ride. We were able to pass by Vanishing Island (which is a bit crowded), different rock formations and the majestic Mayon Volcano.

While on our way to the island, we had a few chats with Kuya boatman and mentioned about the entrance fee because based from my research, there's a Php 150.00 entrance fee per person plus the cottage fee. Luckily, he said that we don't need to pay anything anymore. That is because when the family that maintains the island implemented the fees, fewer people visited the island and just went to other nearby islands for free. He also mentioned that there are still cottages that we can use and we just have to give whatever amount that we want as donation to the care takers. Good job!

Finally, we landed at Pinamuntugan Island. It was so beautiful: I couldn't explain my happiness.

There were already 2 groups of people when we arrived and it was not crowded at all. There were three cottages, the two already occupied and the last one was meant for us. Haha!

There are two bathrooms/comfort rooms in the island but with limited water. The care takers told us that they still get water from the other side of the island and that still needs a boat ride. They are so kind enough to cook rice for us (because we thought the rice that we brought is not enough). We also asked for a gallon of water for the adults (we have two kids with us that cannot just drink water from an unknown source, to be safe) We paid them for the gallon of water as well as the rice and the service of cooking it for us!
We settled our things and then after a a lot of picture taking, we went on swimming the whole day. :)