Love at First Sight

I met her in Palawan. We were on our third day of touring Coron and its outskirts, and had come a long way from Calauit for a small game – descendants of the ones from Kenya sent during the 70s. We were dog-tired from the six-hour boat ride to and from Calauit and all the arid hours spent in between. In secret, I wanted to call it a day.


And then I saw her.

She was young as the day, mysterious in her quietness. My heart pounded. I froze, smitten by her rare beauty.  

Right off the bat, I knew She was something special.


Like most love stories go, ours was a whirlwind romance.  

We cavorted and swam under the noon sun, her bare bones and breath swathed around my burning skin. Her heartbeat blaring, piercing the silence. 

I wrapped her fine white sheets around me as we laid down and looked up the storm that loomed above shore. Away from examining eyes,  I whispered to her, “I want to live here with you.”

But alas, all great love must end. 
For only in leaving, can we revel in loss’ meaning and mend.

The boatman summoned us, and I quit waxing poetic.  I bid a heavy-hearted farewell, here where, adrift on the sea, I fell in love at first sight. 

Her name is North Cay, and there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t long for her. 


You could find her just off the coast of Salvacion, the capital of Busuanga in Palawan. Her sister, South Cay, lives a few miles off shore.

If you get to see her, please send a hi for me. Tell her I miss her. Tell her that one day, I will be back and we shall be together again. 

Travel Notes on North Cay Island: 

• First things first: I’ve never felt as hopelessly romantic for a place like that since Magalawa Island. And trust me, she’ll delight you too.

• North Cay is accessible via a two-and-a-half hour boat ride from Coron town proper. If you’re coming from Busuanga though, North Cay can be reached in about 30-45 minutes by boarding a boat from the Concepcion wharf. 

•  Its sister, equally stunning South Cay – now privatized and in the process of being developed into a luxury resort (like its neighbor, Huma Island Resort) sits about 10 minutes away. It is impermissible to tourists, but you can always ask your boatman to try.

• Entrance fee is P200 per head (free use of beach lounge chairs), regardless of how short your stay is. You get off the boat, you pay up (we were there for 30 minutes and were charged the same rate). This is probably the only thing I don’t like about the island. The owners seem to be too concerned with making money, they forget about guest satisfaction.

• Haggle with the caretaker though if you’ll only be there a few minutes. It works. LOL.

• The island faces the open sea. Based on other visitors’ accounts, the current can be strong sometimes, though that wasn’t the case when we visited. The water was super calm and the current, almost nil. Perfect for kids. There were no other visitors on the island – which is the norm, according to the boatmen.

• You can stay overnight in one of three lovely beachfront cottages for P1,000 per head. They’re adjoined together, with one T&B attached to one of the cottages.

• There’s electricity, but it’s turned off by midnight till morning. 

• There’s a pingpong table (fronting the cottages) and a volleyball court to while time away. For snorkeling junkies, there’s a pretty sizable reef area with various fish species about five meters from shore. Some boatmen aren’t aware of this reef and will probably tell you there isn’t one, so keep looking! 

• Night divers go here for the octopuses and moray eels. 

• Do check out the beautiful rock pools at the western end of the island. 

• A tour to North Cay is usually bundled with a trip to Calauit and Black Island. It’s about an hour away from Calauit, and 30 minutes from Black Island.  If you want a more relaxed trip, go for a beach bumming tour to North Cay, Pass Island, Dibutonay, and Calumbuyan.