My Boracay Week: A Travel Journal from Station 3 to Puka Beach
The boat from Caticlan to Boracay takes 15 minutes. It costs PHP 75 for the environmental fee and PHP 100 for the terminal, plus the boat fare. The boat is a bangka — an outrigger canoe with a roof. The water is calm on the White Beach side during amihan season. The first thing I saw when we docked was the sand.
White. Actually white. Not the off-yellow that most beaches settle for. This sand squeaks when you walk on it.
Day 1: Station 3
I'd booked a fan room at a Station 3 guesthouse. PHP 1,200/night (~$22). Basic: bed, fan, cold shower, WiFi that worked when it felt like it. Station 3 is the budget end — smaller hotels, local restaurants, and a 10-minute walk to the Station 2 action.
First order of business: the beach. I walked from Station 3 to Station 1. Takes about 45 minutes. The sand doesn't change — same white, same fine texture, the entire 4 kilometers. The water is turquoise and absurdly warm. You wade in knee-deep for 30 meters before it gets to waist height.
Sunset from Station 1 was my first. The sky went orange, then pink, then purple, then dark. Paraw sailboats drifted across the foreground like paper cutouts. Everyone on the beach stopped walking and just watched.
I ate at Andok's — a Filipino chain near Station 2. Lechon manok (roast chicken) for PHP 200 (~$3.60). Greasy, perfect, eaten on a plastic chair watching the beach.
Day 2: Underwater
Island-hopping tour. PHP 2,000 per person. Our bangka carried eight of us to Crocodile Island first — the best snorkeling spot. The reef here has recovered since the 2018 rehabilitation. Corals are growing. Schools of sergeant major fish swarmed around me. I didn't see a turtle, but the Korean couple on the boat did and wouldn't stop talking about it.
Crystal Cove: PHP 200 entry. A small island with caves and a beach. The caves have blue-green water inside that glows when the sun hits it. We spent an hour snorkeling the surrounding reef.
Lunch on a beach. Grilled fish, rice, and mango. Included in the tour price. Eaten with my hands because someone forgot to bring forks and nobody cared.
Day 3: The Jump
Ariel's Point. The boat left at 8AM from Station 1. Thirty minutes to a private cove on the mainland coast. Five cliff-diving platforms.
The 3-meter: fine. Fun. Like jumping off a diving board.
The 5-meter: a moment of hesitation, then commitment.
The 8-meter: I stood on the edge for two minutes. A Filipino teenager pushed past me, did a backflip, and surfaced laughing.
The 10-meter: I counted to three. I counted to three again. On the fifth attempt at counting to three, I jumped. The fall was long enough to think about it. The impact was sharp enough to remember.
The 15-meter: I watched. I respected. I did not jump.
The rest of the day was kayaking, snorkeling, and unlimited food and drinks. The rum was strong. The boat ride back was sleepy.
PHP 3,000. Worth double.
Day 4: Puka Beach
Tricycle to Puka Beach from Station 3. PHP 150. The road cuts through the island's interior — palm trees, small houses, roosters.
Puka Beach is Boracay's other personality. Coarser sand. Stronger waves. No hawkers (well, fewer hawkers). Local food stalls sell grilled corn for PHP 30 and fresh coconut for PHP 50. I body-surfed in the shore break for an hour, which sounds childish because it is, and it was excellent.
Lunch: a beach stall's grilled squid and garlic rice. PHP 180. The squid was caught that morning. I ate it watching the waves and reading a waterlogged paperback I'd found at the guesthouse book exchange.
Back to White Beach for sunset. The ritual. Station 2 fire dancers starting at 7PM. A mango shake from a beachfront stall (PHP 80). The sky doing its thing.
Day 5: Nothing, Perfectly
I stayed on the beach. All day. I swam in the morning. I read in the shade from 10AM to 2PM. I swam again. I walked to D'Mall for a calamansi muffin at Real Coffee (PHP 200 — overpriced, exceptional).
At 5PM I rented a paraw for the sunset sail. PHP 1,500 for the hour. The Filipino sailor adjusted the sail without speaking, tacking the double-outrigger back and forth along Station 1. No motor. No music. Just wind and water and the sun disappearing.
Dinner: the Smoke Restaurant for ribs. PHP 450. They were fall-off-the-bone and came with cornbread. I ate alone at the bar and talked to a couple from Portland who were on their honeymoon and couldn't believe the sand was real.
Day 6: Bulabog Sunrise
Up at 5:30AM. Walked across the island to Bulabog Beach in 15 minutes. The east coast gets the sunrise and during amihan season it's calm — a mirror reflecting the pink sky.
Nobody was there. A fisherman was pulling in a net. Two dogs ran on the sand. The sunrise happened slowly, then all at once.
Afternoon: helmet diving. PHP 1,000 for 20 minutes. You walk the seafloor wearing an air-pumped helmet. Fish eat from your hands. A pufferfish drifted past my mask at eye level, completely unbothered. It's not scuba. It's not snorkeling. It's something in between that feels like being in an aquarium from the inside.
Day 7: Departure
Last morning swim. 7AM. The water was glass. White Beach at dawn, before the vendors and the tourists and the fire dancers, is just sand and water and silence. A heron stood in the shallows near Station 1. We regarded each other for a moment, then it flew.
Tricycle to Caticlan jetty. Bangka to the mainland. Flight to Manila.
Would I Go Back?
I already have. And I'll go again. Boracay gets criticism for being too developed, too crowded, too touristy. Some of that is fair — Station 2 on a Saturday night in January is chaotic. But the beach is still that beach. The sand still squeaks. The sunset still stops you mid-sentence.
Stay in Station 3. Eat at the local places. Jump off the cliff at Ariel's Point. Walk to Puka Beach. And watch the sunset at least three times, because the first time you'll take photos, the second time you'll put the phone away, and the third time you'll just stand there.
