Summer Getaway 2010 #1: Potipot Island, Zambales

Potipot Island

View of the whole island.

Potipot is an island situated in the province of Zambales specifically in Candelaria. I can't quite remember how we got there since had our own van for our transportation though it took us about 6 hours including our trip to the market which took us 1 hour and our stop over which took 30 minutes and we had to wait for another 30 minutes for the boat which took us from the shore of Zambales to Potipot island.

Church in Candelaria, Zambales

Just across the Church. It's like a plaza.

The public library in Candelaria.

The boat that we rented.

One of the boats which you can hire.

The boat as far as I can remember, you need to rent for 600 pesos one way but can accomodate up to 10 persons so that's 1200. The entrance fee in Potipot is 300 pesos for overnight stay and 250 if you won't be staying there for the night. There are no hotels on the island so you either bring a sleeping bag or tent but there are toilets and shower rooms.

This one I believe is for display purpose only.

The island is really small you can tour around it in less than an hour. The sand is almost white more on very light golden brown and the water is clear and there are lots of trees.

Shadow play.

A bit grayish, golden, white sand.

I felt relaxed while under this tree.

What's unique on this island is the dead trees. As would observe from my pictures, there there quite a few trees along the shore but again, they are already dead but since they are so big they can't be moved from their place and people would usually take pictures on top of those trees.

One of the dead trees there with my shawl hanging. Picture courtesy of sir Allen from EMSPH.

The huge dead tree.

My friend walking towards the tree to take pictures.

There is one particular tree there that if you search Google, you'll notice that it's the favorite spot of tourists and photographers because of its size where you can walk on top of it and the color unlike most trees which are brown, this one is gray or white since its just dead which suits the blue sea and sky. It looks pretty especially if you take black and white pictures of it or if you place a contrasting color such as what I was wearing that day which was blue or what my friend wore which was orange.

My friend and I under the giant dead tree.

My friends on the giant dead tree by the shore.

 Another part of the island is very rocky but quite shallow so you need to walk like 30 meters from the shore to reach like a waist high water level but a few meters beyond that you can already snorkel and see fishes. Unfortunately, I don't know how to swim so I didn't dare snorkel but there are also fishes near the shore as you can see from my video.

It's still shallow from here.

There are also lots of starfish there like the blue starfish we found and another kind of starfish which is bigger but is colored brown and has some thorn like features.

Underwater shot of the starfish that I saw.

Thorny starfish.

Blue starfish.

You can also bring liquor there like what one of us did. Sir Hajji was our bartender in Potipot and made us drink B-52 cocktail or sometimes called Blow Job.

B-52 also known as Blow Job.

Sir Hajji doing his stuff.

Sunset in Potipot is very beautiful as you can see...

Sunset in Potipot.

A different view of the sunset.

Not just the sunset, take a look at the sunrise too!

As if I was holding the sun.

Overall it's a beautiful island and I really recommend going there but I think like any other resorts or beaches, better go there during off peaks where there are only a few people so you can fully enjoy the place without the noise of other people. We went there during the month of May so it was a bit crowded.