Island Hopping in Palawan

Hello! Well, I just had the best two weeks with Hannah. Literally, it was amazing. But I have a lot of blogging to do. I am not going to go in order because Hannah has some of the really good photos, so I am just going to jump all over the place starting with one of my favorite days. This day was operation get Hannah some color aka island hopping. I am proud to say that Hannah no longer looks like she is half albino. She now looks like she is half pig. Just kidding, she isn't that burnt. Only her legs.

Our cool boat

yah, we are pretty cool

 Island hopping was incredible and so much fun. First we went snorkeling and saw so many amazing fish. The water had a lot of algae in it so it wasn't very clear, but I was still flabbergasted by all the colors flashing before my eyes. The only bad thing is we had to wear life vests while snorkeling– SO LAME! But there is a reason for this: tourists tend to dive down and touch the coral, getting their nasty hand oil all over it and killing the beautiful reefs. And since there were about twenty plus tourists bobbing up and down it made sense that we all had to wear life vests since some tourists are complete idiots when it comes to the environment (more on that later). After forty minutes or so of rocking out our life vests and snorkels we boarded the boat to our next destination: Starfish Island! We hopped off the boat and hightailed it to the end of a long sandbar, it looked almost like a leg– I figured that was why it was called Starfish Island, ya know, maybe there were five legs like that. But nope! Right where we dropped our bags in front of the water I spotted 10 huge pink starfish. Starfish Island is named after the starfish, not because it physically resembles a starfish fyi. We took tons of photos with/around them careful not to touch any of them.

This is when my "some tourists have no clue about the environment" story begins. These two girls came down to where we were (another reason not to like them because they ruined our remote and peaceful part of the beach) and situated themselves nearby us. Hannah and I were lounging in the surf soaking up the water and sun– if you recall this was operation get Hannah some color– when I see one of the girls walking in from the ocean with a pile of starfish in her hands. She then

Hannah is a starfish

proceeds to THROW the starfish on the sand. Seriously, she chucked them. Hannah, being the boss she is, walked over to them and said GUYS, then in a sweet nice voice, uh hi. Then again in a "I'm a boss and heart the environment" voice proceeded to tell them the anatomy of a starfish and how they breath and are living creatures blah diddy blah blah science stuff falalala, basically to sum it up she called the girls starfish murderers and so trembling with fear of the tall pale American they returned the starfish to the ocean. Okay, maybe I am being a little dramatic but Hannah did a wonderful job helping the starfish and informing the girls that starfish are animals and not plants (we decided to give the girls the benefit of the doubt and figured that they aren't animal haters but just incredibly stupid and thought starfish were plants, not animals.) I'm being a bit bitter, but it is so frustrating to see people disrespect and abuse such a beautiful place and creature.

I love starfish and the environment.

if only those girls had read this sign.

Okay, so besides that episode, Starfish Island was truly incredible. By far the most beautiful beach I have ever been to. And we ate lunch on a banana leaf, and lets be honest: food always tastes better on a banana leaf. We then went to another island and again lounged and explored. It was truly paradise.

um yes please to fresh buko on the beach.