Welcome to Coron

Thankfully, getting settle in Coron, post boat ride, was a breeze. Ian and I walked part of the way to town, eventually flagged down a tricycle and soon arrived at the Sea Dive resort, where I had a room booked.  There was a kitschy bar, conveniently located about 10 feet from my room so Ian and I decided to grab a drink before calling it a night.  The next morning I was up early thanks to the combination of roosters, construction and the dive office being directly next to my room, there really is no sleeping in with budget accommodation.  I made my way into the dive office with planning to figure out an island hopping tour for the day; different than El Nido, where you pay per person/per tour, in Coron you pay 1,500 for the boat but can share it with up to four people.  I didn't really want to hire my own boat so I was looking to tag along with a group of two or three. It was my lucky day because a Chinese couple were just preparing to leave and said it was no problem if I tagged along. 

Another day of this? Don't mind if I do

I'm on a boat ~

Thursday morning I was up early, packed up the remains of my belongings, said goodbye to my friendly hostel owners and made my way to the pier. I still had some doubts about the day ahead of me but there was really no turning back at this point.  I was told to arrive at the pier at 7 o'clock (an hour before we were due to depart) but knew there would be a lot of waiting in store for me. I considered stopping to buy more snack for the journey but then decided I didn't need to, and instead went to sit at the pier.  There were already a few people waiting while others slowly trickled in, couples, friends, two families and a few other solo travelers.  I kept quiet and enjoyed my morning of observance, watching the people that I was lucky enough to spend the next 8+ hours with.  I knew that an 8 o'clock departure meant we'd be lucky to leave somewhere around 8:30 but many others seemed to be a bit annoyed at the lack of urgency on getting us aboard. Finally, closer to 9 o'clock they brought us to our boat, loaded our luggage and then gave us the go ahead to get on the boat, "one by one" to which no one paid much attention and stormed the boat like a pack of wild animals.  I hung back and laughed at the idiocracy with two others, as the rest of them made their best attempts at sinking the ship before we even left the port, great I was about to be stuck on a boat with 30 morons. 

Let the waiting game begin