Travel and Tourism: Jun Dumlao

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Butanding in Gen. Nakar, Quezon

Butanding or whale shark sighting has become a major tourist in a number of coastal areas of the Philippines in recent years. The more famous is Donsol, Sorsogon, but it is far from Manila, perhaps 13 hours by car. Other coastal areas where butanding is known to exist are in Bohol, Negros Oriental, among others. And in Gen. Nakar, Quezon, where we visited only last weekend. All photos below are from Jun Dumlao's camera. We were on three different boats last Sunday and Jun's group was lucky to find two butandings.

Among the indicators if there is a butanding in the area are the following. (10 Presence of these seagulls or wild ducks gliding to eat small fishes like dilis. Wild birds, tuna and butanding eat these small dilis.

(2) Huge splashes of water, the tuna or butanding are chasing a group of these small fishes.

(3) Fins of the butanding. Like small submarines creating small whirlpool of water.

And there they are.

Huge, dark fish with white spots.

Jun Velasco jumped in the water, and briefly swam with these gentle fish giants.

The other group or boat which saw butanding was Uly Veloso and Raymond Asanza's. Our group followed them too. We only saw huge splashes and fins of the butanding from afar, we were not lucky to see them up close.

Nonetheless, it was a great adventure, with kids in town. Thanks again Raymond, for that wonderful weekend of fun and camaraderie.

* See also Gen. Nakar, Quezon, Mountaineers' Outing, April 30, 2014

Gen. Nakar, Quezon, Mountaineers' Outing

Last weekend, our mountaineering group/barkadahan had a sudden weekend get away at Gen. Nakar, Quezon. Very brief, almost unplanned outing. It started with two different families having their original weekend outing getting cancelled or postponed and their kids were already psychologically set up for a weekend outing. So they scampered for alternative outing, and they started contacting me and other friends in the group, who happened to have no weekend plan. The rest is modern history. :-)

We stayed at the family vacation house of Raymond Asanza. The place is big and nice, not the typical glamorous resorts, but it was spacious, both the house and the backyard between the house and the beach.

But these photos were taken in another beach, no houses or resorts there, isolated, accessible only by boat, around 20-25 minutes by boat from Raymond's place. Nice place.

The waves around at Raymond's place were rather big that day, the boat has a hard time coming in and out, and it was not good for kids to frolick in the water on their own, so this place was nice. Protected by huge rocks, left side of this photo.

The families who went there were the Jun-Peachy Dumlao, Jojo-Bembette Ladip, Raymond Asanza, Uly Veloso and Cristine, Nonoy-Ella Oplas, and Jun Velasco. Only Jun V. did not bring his kids, who have their own activities that weekend in Manila.