March 6th 2015 Boracay Island Day 3- White Beach

A lot of the kids build these in the sand every day. From what I have read they ask for money when you want to take a picture of it so I didn't see any kids so took my picture and ran quickly away haha.

This is my beach access alleyway from Trafalgar Cottages and E-Mall to White Beach. At the very end here are guys offering scooters for rent which are totally over priced.

White Beach.

More of White beach but I think it should be called "Green Beach" once you see the pictures below. I guess "Green Algae Slime beach" wouldn't really appeal to tourists eh?

You can see the different colours of water you can go through. The green algae is right on the shoreline that washes up due to the waves then a whitish brown colour then a torquoise blue colour then the dark blue colour that is much deeper.

Divers leaving some of their oxygen takes on the shore for later.

Divers heading out to a certain roped off area.

Certain areas of the beaches are guys like this (5 guys in picture) with wire mesh nets for strainers to clean up all the green algae along the shoreline to make it nicer to swim in. They usually dig a hole and bury it in.

This was the last shot before my camera battery died. Just a little island off the beach.

The restaurants along the White Beach path have all first world prices. Spent $19 cdn at Shakeys the other night and then $10 cdn for a meatball sub and ice tea. Obviously with all the tourists that can afford to be there can afford the prices as they are on a short 2 week or less trip but most of the Philippines is not like this. I can assure you the filipino workers here are not getting first world wages. 

Right at my beach access alleyway to Trafalgar Cottages (see 2nd photo above) there are scooter renters there always asking me if I want to rent a scooter. This time I asked "How much?" and they said "It depends sir, there are different rates depending on how long you want it for" at which point one of them pulls out their prices and I take a quick look at the lowest one which was 1200 pesos for a 2 hour rental. I said "Holy shit! that is expensive!!!" and they laughed. Just to give you an idea of how far 1200 pesos can go, I bought my airline ticket from iloilo city to Davao city plus an additional 15kg of luggage fee for a total of 1200 pesos!

My camera battery died (at the last picture here) as I began my trek around the island so headed back to my room to recharge the battery (no point going anywhere if I can't take pictures). Some areas of the beach have a lot of green algae and other have less but I noticed some workers were out with a strainer (meshy looking net) skimming all the green algae out of the water in front of certain hotels and businesses which definitely made it look better. As I swam I saw new people to Boracay come down to the beach to dip their toe into the water and then they immediately hesitated once they saw the green algae and the women turned away but saw the men trek through the green Algae to get to the good part of the water. It took me a full minute before deciding to go through the green slimy algae to get to the nice part to go swimming. It instantly turns you off but you can see the nice blue and clean turquoise water ahead 15 feet.