The Island of Bohol

     Getting a ferry to Bohol was as easy as pie!  Plus the ferry was fast- we got all the way over in just an hour!  Then transportation to the bed and breakfast was really easy too.  The bed and breakfast was lovely. We got real hot showers and slept with rain falling on the roof and an ocean breeze coming in through the windows.  Our hosts were an Australian man and his Filipino wife.  The man, was quite a character- crude and crass and full of curse words- but overall a nice guy.
They accompanied us on our tour of the island on my birthday and we were able to see all the main highlights of Bohol along with some lesser known places.

  Tubigon Weaving and Loom:

The Weaving and Loom place is a building with looms that women can come to use and then sell their goods in the shop to support themselves. 

Weaving

Weaving

Small Chocolate Hills

Large Chocolate Hills 

Happy Birthday Girl with the Chocolate Hills :)

Tarsier- one of the world's smallest primates- native to Bohol. 

     After our tour we went snorkeling on the reef right outside the bed and breakfast. It was AMAZING! Absolutely beautiful! We saw 3 giant clams- literally 3-4 long and a good foot and a half wide- they are absolutely stunning in size and colors. We could see them "breathing?" We also saw at least 15 huge starfish- like at least 1 foot in diameter, maybe more (it's hard to tell underwater) both "cobalt blue" skinny sea stars and large pink/reddish fat ones with dark points in the middle. We did not have an underwater camera- but here are some pictures of similar things to what we saw that I found online. I do this more to help myself not forget what we saw. 

The large pink/reddish ones we saw were fatter and only had the dark "horns" or "nubbins" in the middle.

Lionfish- we did not see them this close up! They were kind of hiding down between corals and rocks when we saw them- pretty amazing though. 

Giant Clam- we saw one similar to this and also one with purple-ish colors. They close up tighter when they sense that you are near. Our host said there used to be over 20 giant clams out int he bay- the neighbors, he says, have been taking them.  :( So sad. Only 3 are left in that bay area. 

We saw black clownfish in a beautiful anemone (more beautiful than this) They were trying to scare off  some yellow and black fish.

These beautiful blue sea stars are much more vibrant blue in real life. 

Snorkeling was my favorite part of the entire trip.  We hope to go somewhere closer to Baguio to go snorkeling again before we leave the country.