Pandan Island Dec. 2016/Jan 1st 2017

So for the week after Christmas, all of IRRI shuts down.  Might as well go on vacation!  We had been told of this island, Pandan Island.  Beach was good, snorkeling wasn't bad, and we could drive there!  So on Dec. 27th, on day after the port reopened (we had a typhoon go through the area and it had closed down the port), we took off!  We arrived in at the port plenty of time for the 10am boat. . . which never arrived.  We ended up sitting in our car blocked in by other cars and gates for 6 hours!!!!  Finally, two boats arrived and we were FINALLY on our way!

 Selfies during our long wait!

 Kid's were happy to be someplace other than in the car, but we still had about 1.5 hour boat ride to the other island, Mindoro.

The view was wonderful, however!

And all the kids made friends who were anxious to talk with them.  

We drove the other 1.5 hours or so to the spot where the boat would pick us up to take us to the island.  This is at about 10:30pm.  We are tired, but glad to almost be there!

Finally the next morning it was ocean time!!!  YEAH!

And of course, snorkeling time!!  Unfortunately, the typhoon had clouded up the water and it was hard to see anything the first day.  But it was still fun and taking pictures underwater was awesome!

The beach was beautiful!

This is the view from our cabin.  The cabin was good.  It wasn't clean, too many spider webs and stained sheets, but it really had potential!

Games in the daytime helped us stay out of the sun for awhile!

Love a good walk on the beach!

 Especially when we find starfish!  This one was out of the water and not doing well.

So we put it back in, but who knows if it survived the dryness of land!  It was still really cool to see!  We did see a couple others actually still in the water.

Andrew collected SO MANY shells!!  This is Josh helping him clean off one he found that was covered in ants.

Digging the crab holes up was a must.  After a couple of days just looking, it was time to dig away!

Clothes or swimming suites, didn't really matter at some point!  

An artist was painting on the beach and included us in the picture!  Josh took a picture of the picture. So it's like we have a copy of it ourselves now!

Beautiful Sunsets!!  Seriously, no joke, so fabulous!

Two cute boys. . . years apart in age, but so similar in everything else!!

This was one of my favorite things.  Clams inside rocks.  We saw some live ones while snorkeling.  It amazed me how they got in there and really everything about it!

Double rainbow our last night there!  New Year's Eve!

Tired boy during the New Year Eve fireworks!

Next morning, we were ready to be off!  Took the chance that we would get on a boat back home, and we did!!  Despite the warnings that they don't run as often on January 1st!  So glad the way home was smoother!

It was a great get away and our first beach experience in the Philippines!  Our friends Shalob and Yvonne came and surprised us by coming to the same island!  For some odd reason, I just didn't get them in any pictures!  It was awesome having someone else there we knew, and who also had a dog for our dog to play with!  Dogs had fun, Adults had fun, and Children had fun!  Only regret was accomodations were rather poor. . . oh well.  "It's more fun in the Philippines", they say!