Fishing trips in the Philippines - Samar (3)

We now have a much better understanding of this region, generally known as western Samar and what I call "Inland sea of Samar", if not much in terms of information on fishing. To go any further we will have to visit this place and talk to people there.

Inland sea of Samal (coined):  https://goo.gl/DRSx4V 

So, what do we know now? There are many, but the most important is the overwhelming importance of Cebu International Airport on Mactan and the ferry port just across from it on the island of Cebu.

For your information we noted earlier that the port of Cebu is best reached from Mactan by a very short (20 minutes) ferry. Taxi ride will be PHP 400 and takes much longer in time.

                    

To get to western Samar the key place is Ormoc and to get to Surigao and beyond it is Maasin. Cebu is that important and is the corner stone of everything in the Visayas and south. We will be looking at Surigao and surrouding areas separately.

Let us take a closer look at western Samar, as follows.

           

There are three blocks of interest. B1 and B2 are connected by bangka boat, apparently, but there was very little I could discover about this short crossing.

Whether or not B1 and B2 are connectable about the only realistic way of getting to them is via Omroc and then by bus and ferry. Block B3 can only be reached from Catbalogan by ferry and by land from Ormoc.

Here, we note that the land sections 1,2, and 3 by bus are all more or less 3 hours and that there is no ferry between B1 and B3.

We also note that block B2 is best reached from Calbayog and there still remains the question of getting there how.

From my experience of Cebu-Dumaguete by Ocean Jet (4 hours plus) my guess is that the route Cebu-Ormoc will be very similar in time and if you add the bus ride from Ormoc it is certain that you will have to stay overnight in Tacloban.

From Tacloban to Calbayog will be another day by bus, so there is always this temptation of going to Naval in Biliran by bus from Ormoc and keep our fingers crossed for the ferry from Naval to block B2.

While I throughly enjoyed my 3 hour bus ride between Davao and General Santos in Mindanao the mere thought of 6-7 hour bus ride from Tacloban to Calbayog is daunting.

Actually, I have since found the following:  https://goo.gl/0ToQY5

This article by, presumably a retired American, I think, is very, very good. I only had a very quick look, but he does mention Maripipi - Almagro - Calbayog line of movement by boat in some concrete and plausible manner. He also mentions land route options with costs.

See also: https://goo.gl/zR54HO

Anyway, the food for further thoughts is all here. We will now be looking at Surigao/Siargao areas in the next few artcles.