Escalante, Negros - Tabuelan, Cebu RORO trip

Until the 80s and 90s, the main ports serving the neighboring islands of Negros (Neg. Occ. and Neg. Or.) and Cebu were the ports of San Carlos City and Toledo City, respectively. Over a decade or two ago, the Escalante, Negros Occ. - Tabuelan, Cebu ports became operational.

Escalante Port, PPA and Coast Guard offices.

I took this photo last month at the Ceres terminal in Cadiz City, Negros Occ. Six trips a day, Bacolod City to Cebu City, another six trips a day coming back. Ceres buses are loaded in 3 different boats (and 3 different shipping lines?).

Here's the schedule of one shipping line.

 

Another docking station under construction, Escalante.

The area looks like a very small gulf, ideal for RORO ports as the docked boats can be protected from strong winds and big waves during heavy storms and typhoons.

The Aznar shipping line, preparing to dock at Escalante port. This is the boat that I took going to Cebu. Here it was carrying only one Ceres bus and a few cars.

We entered the boat. Huge area for cars, buses and trucks. This was later full of vehicles -- many trucks and cars and 1 Ceres bus. Passenger fare is around P190 I think, I don't remember.

The passengers area. No aircon section, just open air.

So this was my route, Cadiz to Escalante, boat to Tabuela then Cebu City. I got these two maps from the web, I did not make them.

Another map showing the other route, San Carlos in Negros -- Toledo in Cebu. A third route would be in Tanguil, after Barili, Cebu -- Guihulngan, Negros Or. And a fourth route would be Santander-Dumaguete, am not sure about this.

Tabuelan Port, Cebu. Small and underdeveloped and already busy.

See this, 3 boats squeezed with each other in a small docking area. The distance between the boats would be around less than 1 meter. Our boat is in the middle, where a Ceres bus is coming out.

I like the road scenes from Tabuelan to Carmen, Cebu. In another post.