El nido is a coastal town found on the northernmost tip of Palawan, home to beautiful islands, white-sand beaches, extravagant blue lagoons and coral reefs. It is easily the most scenically located place in Palawan, nestled between steep limestone peaks and a gorgeous bay.

Palawan was in my to-do list since a decade now. Back in 2014 my visit got cancelled at the last moment. This time after all bookings a Typhoon made things doubtful again. I landed in Manila and took a connection to El nido. Everyone said it’s raining crazy in Palawan.

I landed during an afternoon, locals told me it didn’t rain since that morning but we may have some late evening showers… it looked very overcast though.

Checked into the hostel, rented a two wheeler and roamed around the Island…. It was very cold and started to rain a bit as well, so went to a cafe called SIP lounge to just chill and get some shelter from rain… View from the cafe was amazing, it was over looking the beautiful limestone mountains..  After a while the rain stopped, could see the Sun peeking out for a short while… That gave me some hope on good weather for the next few days to come… The golden hour light was surreal adding to the beautiful backdrop of the limestone structures…

I walked around to find a dive shop for the next day’s dive, hoping the weather is better. I met the instructors at the submariner dive center, they asked me to come next morning and do the formalities ..Later that evening there was a halloween party at the hostel’s rooftop..

Woke up to an overcast morning the next day. Had an early breakfast at the hostel’s cafe… Super strong coffe with fried cheeze eggs… That gave me that extra bit of energy for the day…. walked to the dive shop in all hopes for a good dive day….

The view from the dive shop was amazing…. You could sit there all day enjoying the beauty of this place… We did the formalities and got our gears ready…

It was time to hop on to the boat, we took a small Kayak which took us to the dive boat…. After an hour’s sailing we reached our first dive site of the day – Entalula  Wall. After the briefing, got our gears on and started with our first dive. It was very relaxing, almost zero current and visibility was good.  Saw a lot of eerls, sting rays, schools of other fishes… It was a deep dive…

Then reached our next dive site which was South miniloc, again what we saw were almost similar but the cabbage corals were really special… This wasn’t a deep dive, so we had a lot of time underwater….. Then had lunch on the boat, amazing Filipino food was amazing….

We all were super excited for the next dive, instructor told us it would be a dive through a cave .. But soon the disappoint, as it was very windy at the site… Then went to the Helicoptor dive site which has a good chance of seeing Dugong…. It was good dive but no dugongs though… returned slightly disappointed because of no dive through…

Best part of all the dives is the post dive catch up… to do your logs, discuss reg the dives and other travel stories.. We went to the upper deck of the dive shop lounge and just chilled for hours…. talking about different things along with view of limestone mountains…..

In the hostel’s rooftop they had a wonderful restaurant over looking the ocean. The pool was the best place to be in the evenings during sunset along with some good music and the company of other travellers sharing their travel stories and dive experiences.

In El nido,  streets near the main town were very lively in the evenings… You can take a stroll around to catch up with some good music and vibe…. play a game of snooker or sing a karaoke or indulge in local casino type games  or some amazing seafood/live music….  It’s very vibrant….

Did another day of diving with submariner divers….  It was a very relaxing one although didn’t see anything different, saw school of small fishes, beautiful box fishes, a huge puffer and a turtle very close by….

Click here for El Nido Dive Video