Hellboat: El Nido to Coron — The road liss traveled

El Nido to Coron

The last time I was in El Nido 10 years ago there was no ferry in between El Nido and the island of Coron, it was just a Bangka boat, and it was a pretty horrible experience. It took 7 or 8 hours, the water was choppy, the boat lurched over every wave, people were puking, and it was the worst boat ride I had in the country. Fast forward to now, there’s a daily ferry running between the two spots, woo! No more crappy Bangka boat!

So the morning of the ferry I strolled my way over to the small port where the ferry office is and attempted to purchase my ticket. In all my traveling in the Philippines I’ve always booked ferries the day of and not once has this ever been a problem. Well it was now! The next one available was in four days! Shiiiit. I’ve basically run out of things to do in El Nido. There is an option to fly, which is pretty expensive, but even that was sold out for days as well. I stopped in some travel agencies and they all told me the same thing, I was basically SOL, gotta wait four days. No other option.

So I was talking to the lady that runs the hotel, and she said she’d call around for me. Ok, great. Turns out there is a ‘cargo bangka’ leaving at 2am for Coron and I could get on it if I want. Hmm, a crappy Bangka boat, middle of the night, no sleep, costs even more than the ferry, I literally can’t even imagine a worse option. But at least I had an option! I really didn’t want to be in tourist trap El Nido town for 4 more days. I said I’d take it.

That evening the hotel owner gave me a blanket and pillows to get some sleep for a few hours. Pickup at 2am. We weren’t even leaving from the El Nido port, we were driving an hour north and leaving from the far tip of Palawan. The 2 am pickup turned into 3am, and eventually the van stopped by, someone pounded on the door, and I sprung up and crawled into the van. We still had to pick up 10 more people on the way north. By 4:30am we reached our destination. It wasn’t a port, it wasn’t pier it was just a piece of dirt and rocks a little bit off the main road with the Bangka boat, dimly lit, waiting in the water. We walked the gangplank and boarded in almost total darkness. All the big bags went into a section beneath the deck, and we all sat on the wooden benches on the front deck, about 20 people in total. I’m almost positive that this was not a legal boat trip. But ‘legal’ is a looser term in the Philippines.

After being on the water for a little bit one of the crew asked if anyone wanted to go on top, and having experience with the long Bangka ride to Coron before, I was the first one (and the only one) to go up top. Two crew members were already up there curled into balls, and I would be doing the same thing, using my small backpack as a pillow. I literally had the best spot on the boat. As we got further out the wind and waves and the spray started picking up and one other person joined me up top, some went back into the boathouse, and the rest just stayed sitting on the front deck, getting sprayed with water in the darkness like suckers.

Eventually the sun came up, which was quite beautiful from where I was, with little islands around whose rocky faces jutted sharply out of the sea. Eventually we pulled over near one of them for breakfast. Lots of weary, disgruntled faces, not even 3 hours in. Apparently breakfast was included in the cost, but really nobody on the boat was hungry. It was rice, hot dog, and hardboiled eggs. Most people just picked at it, kind of annoyed we were stopped so long.

Once we finished, most of the people on the front deck finally wised up and climbed up on top. Except there were so many people up there now that it was impossible to lay down. People squeezed me out of my prime position, so I just had a small section to sit. But without anything to rest your back on, sitting is not very comfortable. The sun started to get hot, so eventually I stripped down to my swim trunks, loaded on the sunscreen and headed down to the front deck to take on some spray.

It appeared we had chosen a particularly windy day. It felt like our boat was just crawling over the waves. The Bangka boats are small enough that they can’t really ride through waves as the stern will just get buried into the wave and lots of water will come on deck, so we just went fast enough to creep over the top of the crest and down again. Although every larger than average size wave, combined with the wind, would send spray all across the front deck. Really annoying! Looking on offline maps if you extrapolated how far we’d gone in 3 hours, this was looking like a 10-11 hour boat ride. Yikes. They told us 6-7 originally. Some people asked the crew how long they thought it would take and all they would say is “I don’t know”. Bad sign! Very bad sign!

I think some people were optimistic that conditions would get better and we’d start making better time. But I knew the truth. The further out we got was less protected by other islands and more like open ocean, so if anything it was going to get worse. I mentally prepared for getting in after dark. Time to go into zen mode and turn off the brain. Watching the clock and the location on the map only makes it worse. I got as comfortable as I could laying down on the front bench and let the spray do its thing. See the ocean, be the ocean.

And it did get worse. The water got even choppier, there were more white caps, and even more spray onto the boat. It felt like we were hardly even moving. Islands ahead in the distance seemed to get no closer. After 6 or 7 hours some people started getting angsty. At this point it was apparent that we were in it for the long haul. One French guy started yelling at the crew and his friends had to cool him off. One girl was almost in tears because her stomach was hurting.

Fortunately no one was puking, we were going so slow that you don’t really get that hard boat lurch that drops your stomach, but you could tell plenty of people were nauseous and out of it. It seemed as if I had made a poor choice by giving up my spot on the top. People on top weren’t going anywhere, people in the back boathouse weren’t going anywhere, so I was stuck up front with the spray. Eh whatever, I was used to it now. At least I don’t really get seasick, so I felt alright.

We kept plodding along and after many many hours crossing the open section of sea we finally made it close some more islands that protected the water a bit. We started picking up speed, the mood on the boat was visibly lifted. We could now see the beautiful green face of Coron Island, rising out of the water. And that’s when the engine died.

It shook and rattled for a few seconds and just cut out. Noooo. For 30 minutes we sat there not moving, wondering if we’ll ever move. Listening to the clanking sound of a hammer on metal, on a complicated piece of machinery such as an engine, does not inspire confidence. We’d been on this hunk of wood for 11 hours now, people were in rough shape. No said anything, just waited silently, despondently. And then sure enough it started! But we soon realized we were not matching the speed we had been going at before. The water got calmer and calmer as we got into the bay, this is supposed to be the part where we could zip into shore! But nooo. Even though the conditions got better we still just putt putted along. The hardest, most frustrating part was being able to see our final destination, with smooth water in front of us, but feeling like we were hardly getting any closer to it. It’s right there! Agghhh. Back to zen mode.

Of course after another couple hours of plodding we finally made it into the port of Coron Town. Thank god. The sun was just setting, the scenery was quite stunning. Most people were excited, some looked like they’d been put in a burlap sack and beaten with a stick, limping off the boat. Everyone who wasn’t sitting in the boathouse was donning some shade of pink to deep red, as there was zero cover. But we made it! 13.5 hours in total on the boat, 15 if you include the van ride. So all in all, just one long travel day! I’d get to bed nice and early and be up and at’em the next morning.