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  • Tag: islands

    • kauai

      Posted at 1:13 pm by jasminedesirees, on July 16, 2015

      A few more snaps from my time in Kauai. I’d been there once before, but only for a short weekend, so I was very excited to go back. It’s such a beautiful place, and I was so glad to be able to spend more time there so I could really explore the whole island.

      Unfortunately, the more creeping around I did, the more I found that there was still a lot to see, so I’ll just have to go back again. How sad.

      Also, if I ever go missing, I am definitely, absolutely not hiding out in that green house on the North Shore of Kauai, so probably don’t look there.

      DSC_6866

      DSC_7042

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      DSC_7002

      DSC_6999

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      DSC_6973

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      DSC_6864

      DSC_6867

      Posted in Hawaii, travel, USA | 0 Comments | Tagged beach, beautiful place, Hawaii, hiking, islands, kauai, Na Pali Coast, travel
    • a hui hou

      Posted at 11:38 am by jasminedesirees, on May 25, 2015

      image

      Flying home tonight after more than two weeks on the islands. I know we had good reasons for moving away, but sometimes I can’t remember what they were.

      Posted in Hawaii, travel, USA | 1 Comment | Tagged 808, beach, Hawaii, islands, travel
    • coron, busuaga

      Posted at 8:19 am by jasminedesirees, on May 7, 2015

      The morning after our island hopping adventures out of El Nido, we were up bright and early to catch the boat to Coron. You can buy tickets to Coron almost anywhere in El Nido, and I’d done a little reading about the trip, and it sounded pretty horrible.

      The only information I could find online from people taking this boat said that their boats sank and they had to swim to shore, or their captains were drunk, etc, so it was a little disheartening, but we weren’t not going to go. I feel like that happens a lot though, either we are the luckiest people in the world, or most people have absolutely no problems, but it’s only the few who do that post anything about their experience.

      coron busuaga philippines

      coron busuaga philippines

      coron busuaga philippines

      Our boat left from the El Nido harbour, it’s pretty easy to get to, but once we were there, things were a little confusing. Nobody seemed very sure where we were supposed to go, and there was another boat leaving at the same time, so we didn’t want to end up taking the wrong one.

      coron busuaga philippines

      coron busuaga philippines

      coron busuaga philippines

      We eventually got on the boat, and it was actually really wonderful. There were two decks, and not that many people, so everyone had tons of room. Once we were on our way, everyone kind of dispersed about the ship and carved out a little spot for themselves. I made a bed out of lifejackets and cuddled in with my laptop. I had rented a few movies for the boat ride since it was 8 hours, but I only ended up watching one of them, because the view outside was so amazing.

      coron busuaga philippines

      coron busuaga philippines

      coron busuaga philippines

      The water colour is so beautiful, and there are all these little islands and outcroppings, we saw one with the most adorable little house on it, my dream home for sure. Also, there were these amazing little flying fish, they would jump out of the water and fly across the surface for a really long ways, and their fins would leave trails across the water. I watched them for hours, and must have taken about 4,000 pictures trying to get a decent one, but you never knew where they were going to come up from, so it was a bit tricksy.

      coron busuaga philippines

      coron busuaga philippines

      coron busuaga philippines

      I completely forgot we were on a ferry from point A to point B, it was pretty much like a really beautiful booze cruise, although I forgot to bring any booze. The boat even had wi-fi. I was pretty impressed by the whole experience, but if I had to give anybody tips it would be, be sure to bring lots of water, it gets hot and there isn’t any on the boat, and bring snacks if you want some. They served us lunch, it was rice with veggies and chicken in sauce, but I wasn’t eating meat by then so I just stuck with my sleeve of Oreos, obviously the healthier choice.

      coron busuaga philippines

      coron busuaga philippines

      coron busuaga philippines

      I would like to take this moment to point out a very important thing, in case you are thinking of taking this boat to Coron. Just because you take one boat there, does not mean you will be taking the same boat, or even a similar boat back. If the ride there was amazing, and it was, I wish I would have known how spoiled we were, because then I would have enjoyed it even more.

      coron busuaga philippines

      coron busuaga philippines

      coron busuaga philippines

      When we took the boat back to El Nido two days later, we were on a tiny, one deck little fishing boat. There were about 40 people on it, we were literally sitting side by side on a wooden plank for 8 hours. Because the boat was so small, one side was always fully in the sun, so whoever was sitting there had to put up makeshift tents made from sarongs and towels.

      coron busuaga philippines

      coron busuaga philippines

      coron busuaga philippines

      D ended up chatting with one of the deck hands, and he told us we could go up on top of the boat topper, so we did, which was nice because we actually had some room, but it was realllly hot up there. The ride back really wasn’t that bad, it was nothing like the horror stories I’d read about online, but it was a lot less comfortable than the ride there. Both boats go back and forth several times a week, so if you have any flexibility in your dates, try to take the good boat both ways, I promise you will thank me for it.

      coron busuaga philippines

      coron busuaga philippines

      coron busuaga philippines

      Coron itself wasn’t really what I was expecting. It’s a small island, but it’s very busy because of all of the divers, so walking down the street was kind of like taking your life into your hands, there were tricycles racing back and forth all over the place.

      coron busuaga philippines

      coron busuaga philippines

      coron busuaga philippines

      We stayed at a nice little hostel we had found online, it ended up being a great place to stay, but as we were walking down from the road across wooden beams over a muddy pit to check in, I wasn’t sure what we were going to find. The people next door actually had a few little pigs, and you could hear them and see them from the shower.

      coron busuaga philippines

      coron busuaga philippines

      We were’t in Coron very long, just one full day that was spent diving (more about that in my next post) but we met some nice people while we were there. They also had a vegetarian restaurant in town. You had to order the hummus 24 hours in advance, but I was having such bad withdrawals after being in Bali for two months that I decided to go for it, and we came back to eat it the next night, after our day of diving. It was definitely worth the wait.

      coron busuaga philippines

      coron busuaga philippines

      coron busuaga philippines

      Posted in Philippines, travel | 4 Comments | Tagged busuaga, coron, el nido, islands, philippines, scuba, travel
    • low tide

      Posted at 8:00 am by jasminedesirees, on October 20, 2014

      During low tide in Airlie Beach, which happens around noon (and then presumably again at some point during the night, but I wasn’t generally in any condition to investigate this) the water goes out hundreds of meters, leaving a very wide beach, tons of tide pools, and access to some small islands on foot.

      At first, I was just wandering along the beach looking in the tide pools, but then I decided to brave the unknown and walk out to the island that was quite far out, but walkable at that moment. I was a bit worried that I would get out there just as the tide was rushing back in and I’d be trapped out there for the next 12 hours, but I must have read Baby Island a hundred times when I was young, and it gave me (probably false) confidence in my ability to survive alone on a desert island.

      whitsunday islands

      whitsunday islands

      I started squelching my way out there, it got very muddy after awhile, and even though it was only about 6 inches of water, I was convinced there was one of those sharks that blend into the bottom to lure innocent fish waiting for me to step on it. Again, why someone with such a rampant phobia of sharks spends so much time around the ocean is really anybody’s guess.

      whitsunday islands

      whitsunday islands

      I finally made it out there, with both ankles intact which was no small feat when you consider the mud I had to slog through, followed by the millions of slippery, jagged rocks that made up the rest of the path, and started to investigate, keeping an eye out for any signs of buried treasure or Tom Hanks.

      As far as I could tell there was only one other person out there, a middle-aged German lady who had followed me to the island. I thought it was courageous of her to trust me, a perfect stranger in a floral print onesie, not to lead her into certain doom, but there we were.

      whitsunday islands

      whitsunday islands

      Just as I was turning the corner beside the first mandrake, an older Australian gentleman poked his head around the tree and cheerfully announced that there was a dead tiger shark on the island, just up the way, and then continued strolling along back towards the beach.

      I passed the message along to my new German friend, but instead of turning around and heading the other way, she got very excited and rushed off to find it. Even though I really didn’t want to try to find the shark (it was probably dead, if it was, in fact, on the island, but it could have been an elaborate ruse) I felt sort of responsible for her being out there in the first place, so I went along with her.

      whitsunday islands

      We walked all the way down to the other end of the island along the rocks, searching for the shark, but we couldn’t find it, although at one point we both noticed a putrid smell, but we couldn’t see where it was coming from. I think we were both looking for a small animal washed up right along the water.

      We were about halfway back to where I’d met the man, when all of a sudden she stopped and and gasped and pointed at something wedged in the mandrakes.

      whitsunday islands

      It turned out to be a massive, dead shark, and also the source of the smell we hadn’t been able to place earlier. It was really scary, and also really sad.

      After that my companion and I parted ways. I crept around the island a bit more, but once there are sharks in trees all bets are kind of off, so I was too jumpy to explore by myself for much longer, and I started the long, muddy journey back to the main beach, checking carefully for buried sharks before each step.

      whitsunday islands

      Posted in Australia, travel | 0 Comments | Tagged airlie beach, Australia, islands, low tide, sharks, Whitsundays
    • airlie beach: whitsundays

      Posted at 6:28 pm by jasminedesirees, on October 16, 2014

      We spent almost a week in Airlie Beach, and I loved every minute of it. It was so beautiful there, it was kind of like a dream.

      airlie beach

      airlie beach

      It actually really felt like a dream because to get to Airlie Beach, you have to drive down this quiet highway through small farming communities, it actually really reminded me of the small towns in Saskatchewan where I grew up.

      But then you take two rights, and drive 20 minutes past a field full of kangaroos, and emerge on a beautiful white sand beach and turquoise sea.

      airlie beach

      airlie beach

      airlie beach

      We stayed at the Magnum’s Backpackers, and it was great. Magnum’s is right in the middle of town, so it’s really easy to walk everywhere, and it’s right beside the Woolworth’s, and it has a nice big kitchen, so we were able to save a lot of money by cooking almost all of our meals, rather than eating out.

      Also, they have live music almost every evening, and falling asleep to acoustic guitar music every night was lovely.

      airlie beach

      airlie beach

      We also did the Airlie Beach Pub Crawl one night, and it was actually really fun. We met a group of Aussies from Brisbane who were in Airlie on vacation, and a girl from Texas who was WOOFing in Australia on a chicken farm, and had a great time with all of them.

      airlie beach

      airlie beach

      Airlie Beach has a huge park along the water with a gigantic, free swimming pool for everyone to enjoy, and it has a walking/biking path that stretches 5 KM along the ocean. We rented bikes one day and cruised the boardwalk.

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      We also found a hike that would take us up to the top of the hills to see the view of the Whitsundays, but we only made it about ten minutes in before we saw a snake on the path, and then we spun around and ran as fast as we could back the other way.

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      DSC_2764

      Airlie Beach is a pretty small town, and it doesn’t have a lot of diving, so even though our original plan was to stay there and try to find jobs, we decided pretty quickly we wouldn’t be able to stay there long term, but our time there was amazing, and I would absolutely recommend it to anybody who is traveling through Australia.

      DSC_2765

      DSC_2766

      Posted in Australia, travel | 0 Comments | Tagged airlie beach, Australia, beaches, islands, Whitsundays
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