Siete Pecados Marine Park

Our next stop during our Coron Island-hopping tour was the Siete Pecados Marine Sanctuary – a group of seven islets and home to a diverse and rich coral garden underneath the clear blue and green waters. According to the local folklore, Siete Pecados (Seven Sins) is the punishment of the seven sisters who went swimming against their parent’s will. They drowned and eventually seven islets mysteriously sprouted from the sea. Stories like that brings me back to my younger years.

There appeared to be plenty of life on an extensive coral reef in very good condition. It was very close to the Coron port, only about 10 minutes boat ride. The seabed is riddled with sea urchin so when you go there, you have to be very very careful not to walk on the seabed barefoot. The marine ecosystem was better than what I saw in my snorkeling trips in Boracay, Cebu and Puerto Galera.

RULES: No Poaching, No Anchoring and No use of Tikin (long pole used in pushing a boat forward)

Before we jumped off our boat, we had our breakfast of sunny side up eggs, fried rice and danggit and of course coffee. Note that in this series of posts all food mentioned are part of the Php3500 tour fee we paid for. I will write a separate post detailing the tour coverage so watch out for it. The food was enough to give us energy to swim with the fishes so to speak.

Karen's underwater camera was definitely a blessing. We enjoyed our sweet time swimming and feeding the fishes for about 30 minutes then we set sail going to our next destination.

Kayangan Lake

Our second destination for the day was Kayangan Lake. It was voted as the cleanest lake in the Philippines. The water is brackish (water that has more salinity than fresh water, but not as much as seawater). I read that the lake is 70% fresh water and 30% sea water (I'm not sure if this information is correct though). We hiked up and down a hill with stones as steps before we reached the beauty of the lake. I was literally in awe at how beautiful the place was. I was slowly but surely falling in love with Coron as the minutes passed by and Kayangan Lake made me fall in love fast. It was like a scene in a movie (maybe Blue Lagoon). It was well-preserved, truly scenic, very picturesque.

The lake was surrounded by steep limestone cliffs and lush greenery. The underwater rock formations have jagged edges too so we were all reminded to be extra careful if we didn't want to hurt ourselves. The trek was doubly hard as it rained the night before so the stone steps were slippery and the trail was a bit tricky and dangerous in some spots. The mixture of salt and fresh water was very relieving to the body and well worth the effort to get there.

And oh, apart from ample sunscreen protection, make it a point to bring mosquito repellent (lotion or spray) to ward off mosquitoes. There were lots of mosquitoes hovering around as we trek so it was good that we all had protection.

All the effort exerted in the hike to reach the lake was all worth it. I could not wait to go back.

Next Post: Banol Beach and Twin Lagoon