We got picked up from our hotel bright and early to on a boat for our island-hopping and snorkeling tour around Cebu. Via boat, we visited Gilutongan Island, Nalusuan Island Marine Sanctuary, Hilutungan Island, and Pandanon Island. As we were going out to sea, I realized that the last and only time I’d been snorkeling was in the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia, in 2014. How amazing is that — that the two places I will have experienced snorkeling will be the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and Cebu in the Philippines?!

Kaia was able to get a child-size life vest (after Chris had to insist upon it when the operators said they didn’t have one ready for her…), so for the first time, she got to be immersed in deep ocean waters. After a slow start, she was obsessed! She loved being in the water with the both of us. She spent the most time swimming around with Chris since he’s clearly the better swimmer. I got this video of her watching Chris get into the water with his life vest and snorkeling gear on. From the boat, she yelled down at him, “Wait for us! Wait for us, Daddy!” And without a quick enough response from Chris, since she can get impatient, she started again. “Fuzzy, wait for us!” I love how she switched from calling him “Daddy” to calling him “Fuzzy,” since that is what I call him!

A huge difference I noticed right away with snorkeling here versus in the Great Barrier Reef was that my snorkeling gear here was… a bit questionable. We got off the boat at three different points for snorkeling and had two different sets of gear. The first set I had was definitely faulty: water constantly kept flooding into my mouth every time I tried to breathe through the tube, so I was never able to use the breathing tube properly. Because of this, every time I went to swim and look for fish, I just had to hold my breath for as long as possible. The second time we went out to snorkel, I had a different set of gear, and the breathing tube finally worked as it should. I was able to experience the fish and the coral, and it was enjoyable… other than the fact that this area was a bit dead for fish, and we had to move to a third location. At the third location, water kept flooding into my eye mask every now and then, so I had to constantly empty it out and try again. During our Great Barrier Reef snorkeling adventure, everything worked as intended every single time, plus I had the added benefit of flippers to help me move along faster! It’s a bit hard to compare these two snorkeling outings since that was a group tour in Australia while this was private and in the Philippines, but it’s my only other experience with snorkeling. It also made me realize why some people who love snorkeling prefer to buy and transport their own gear; this way, they know it will work well and they will know how to use it.

Once I got my snorkeling gear to work, though, I was obsessed with finding all the rainbow colors in the ocean. The coral here is nowhere as colorful or stunning as the Great Barrier Reef (they don’t call it “great” for nothing!), but occasionally I did see live coral. Sadly, most of it looked dead. But I felt like here, I got closer to very colorful fish than I remember getting in Queensland. The depths of the water in the area of the Great Barrier Reef we were in were far deeper. Here in Cebu where we did our island hopping, the water was relatively shallower. Here, I distinctly know I saw endless clownfish (hi, Nemo!), angelfish, butterflyfish (the yellow, silver, and black patterns on them were so fun to see!), rainbow fish (these looked fake!), parrotfish (so many fluorescent outlines – I loved their purples, electric blues, and greens!), and many others. We saw lots of schools of tiny fish swimming, plus the most number of starfish I’ve seen in my life out in the wild. We saw large ones, small ones, and some very interesting blue starfish. It’s crazy to think that these bright electric colors truly do exist in nature — they are not just made up!

We also got to swim and splash about at Pandanon Island, where you could walk out for what felt like miles and miles before the water would actually get past knee-high. This made it fun and safe for Kaia to splash about; there were pretty much zero waves to worry about. The water was bright turquoise blue where you can always see the ocean floor — it was like the postcards you see of exotic destinations in the South Pacific, except this was actually real and not photoshopped.

We were also served a delicious lunch on our little private boat — an amazing spread of barbecued prawns, mussels, chicken, and rice. I have no idea what kind of marinade they used to cook the seafood and chicken, but I will say that it was a really addictive blend of salty, tangy, sweet, and umami that had me licking my fingers at the end. Kaia devoured the food, as well, and most definitely loved her mussels and chicken. Given we had no regular restroom on board (there was a pot that you could manually “flush” with water that was enclosed.. and comfortable for someone maybe half my size!), we were given a communal bucket filled with water to “wash” our hands. And then Kaia had her first non-Cavendish banana: a little Filipino banana that was far more yellow in the flesh than she is used to. She kept remarking how “so yellow!” it was. I ate one of the bananas, and I immediately tasted the difference: it had an almost custardy after-taste that just lingered. Yum.

We ended the day much tanner than we started (I am so happy I am embracing my rashguard, as it meant that I didn’t have to put any sunscreen on the upper half of my body other than my face, or reapply, which I hate!). And our New Year’s Day dinner was at the famous House of Lechon, where we enjoyed a half kilo of lechon, pork cracklings (as Chris said, “it tastes like a heart attack,” and we unfortunately could not finish these), more kang kong, garlic rice of course, halo halo, plus a tiny shot’s worth of pandan jelly and cream.

This was definitely a memorable New Year’s Day, and an amazing and fun way to start off 2026.