Family Ride to Mindanao - The Departure

I was born in Bonifacio, Misamis Occidental in Mindanao. I reside in Cebu for almost all my life and still is. When I was young, we frequently visited my hometown and my relatives in the nearby towns but now, I can't remember when was the last time that I visited my hometown. I was still too young back then that I only have vague memories of my visits.

I would have liked to visit it some time but due to circumstances and maybe a lack of a major reason to go back and visit, I wasn't able to. Hey, I don't have much resources to fulfill it either and besides, I couldn't exactly remember where and how to get there (lame excuse, I know, lolz).

Bags are packed. One large and the small one at the top box.
Weather was not quite nice but still okay.
I have also checked Mesha's condition the day before
and she's newly oiled.

Months ago, I was invited by Cebu Scoopy Club's President Michael Stephen Hernando to attend their wedding in Roxas, Zamboanga del Norte in Mindanao. I figured now I have a good reason to step on the island where I was born and maybe go and ride a sidetrip to my hometown although it was unlikely because Bonifacio is far from Roxas but who knows, right?

So I prepared an itinerary for the ride. Since, this was a long ride, I wouldn't want to experience it all by myself and so I planned to bring along my wife and daughter with me, typically, hahahah. So even though our budget was quite limited because we have just moved in to our new house, I decided to proceed and just put up a very conservative itinerary.

Bought food at McDonalds, Carcar.

Thankfully, I have my Petron Value Card with me preloaded with a good amount because of my involvement in the preparation of a DOTC event, the Decade of Action for Road Safety (DARS) seminar. Plus, I have a relative in Dipolog City so we could stay there and not spend for a pension house. The only budget bottleneck was the fare for me, my wife, my daughter and of course our Mesha (Scoopy).

On a Friday afternoon, after office, my wife and I planned that we would just meet at my daughter's school. We have already packed and sent the bags at a friend's house near my daughters school so we don't have to go home and start from there. After checking everything, it was time to ride off. We rode off at exactly 5PM. Our destination is Lilo-an Port in Santander (southernmost town of Cebu).

Gas stop at Petron, Argao. And yup, FREE! :)

Now, you may ask, why are we taking the long way round? Why not take the trip direct from Cebu City to Dapitan City? Well, after months of preparation and budget computation, we figured it is cheaper to take the long way round than a direct trip from Cebu City to Dapitan City. Besides, I have free gas card from Petron as well. With that said, our target was to get to a RoRo ship in Lilo-an, Santander to Sibulan, Negros Oriental and from there, ride to Dumaguete City. Then from Dumaguete City, ride a lite vessel ship to Dapitan City.

Our first stop was at McDonald's in Carcar City. Traffic was quite heavy because it was a Friday. We rode off from Mandaue at 5PM and we reached Carcar at around 6:30PM. Our stomachs were already churning so we bought some take-out snacks at McDonald's.

Our plan was to buy our dinner at a famous chicken house in Argao, take-out and eat our dinner at the RoRo. We were trying to get to Santander as early as possible because we were not sure what time the last trip was.

Reached Liloan Port just in time for the 2nd to the last trip.

After buying our dinner at Argao, we rode off at exactly 7PM. This time, a straight ride with no stops, wide-eyed rider (hahaha) and hopefully we would be able to reach the last trip. My tri-LED all-weather headlight was really helpful in the dark roads to Santander.

Thankfully, we were able to reach Lilo-an Port at exactly 8:42PM. Just in time for their 2nd to the last trip at 9PM. At the RoRo, we ate our dinner, a really late dinner but we did had snacks along the way from McDonald's. I think that was the longest night ride that we had so far, more or less 145 kilometers from Mandaue to Santander. Fare for the RoRo was only Php302 that already included us all and take note, this was already a ROUND TRIP ticket. So you asked why we took the long way round? Hehe.

Groupie after our late dinner at the RoRo.

When we reached Sibulan, Negros Oriental, we didn't expect the place still have a lot of people roaming around. I expected a quite town but it wasn't. The town was alive, hehe.

We immediately went our way and ride to Dumaguete City. It was just around 6 kilometers. I have been to Dumaguete before so I was a little familiar with the place. We went to Dumaguete Port first to inquire what ships were going to sail to Dapitan City.

The port of Dumaguete City.

Hoy Lugaw!!! :)

We decided to take the 4AM Aleson Ship. I immediately processed the necessary papers and paid the fares for all of us including Mesha's freight which was a whooping Php1.2K. I thought it was only around Php600 to Php700 but I was wrong. Thankfully, the Php1.2K already included the rider.

After that, we roam around Dumaguete City first. We witnessed one gruesome motorcycle accident where blood was splattered everywhere. It was gruesome that I felt like puking. Still, the delicious Hoy Lugaw was irresistable. LOL!

We stayed and spent the night at the pier, at their waiting area. The place was nice and clean. We just slept at the chairs. It was already around 12 midnight when we hit the "deck" and slept. I set the alarm at 2:30AM because I still have to bring Mesha to the cargo area of the ship.

Sorry for the inconvenience, baby. :(

Mesha prepared to be loaded.

I did get some little sleep. Maybe an hour or so, hehe. My ladies got a little more than 2 or 3 hours. The ship from Dumaguete to Dapitan could take 4 hours so we could continue our sleep at the ship also. At 2:30AM, I woke up, proceeded to the ship to load Mesha first to the cargo area of the ship.

I woke my ladies at 3:30AM and we boarded the ship. We bought boiled eggs and cup noodles. Apparently, vendors were everywhere before the ship sailed and is actually a good thing. People want to eat something before the ship sails.

At the ship, I only slept maybe an hour or two. It was really cold. My ladies were more comfortable because  they have our towel to keep them warm and I don't have one, hahaha! Anyways, the sun was slowly rising so instead of sleeping at a very cold morning, I opted to take out my camera and shot sunrise in the middle of the sea. At least I haven't done this before so it was worthwhile.

My ladies were still asleep while I was awake and taking some sunrise photos.

There were a lot of clouds that hindered to beautifully capture sunrise moments in the middle of the sea.

Groupie at the ship before we got off from the ship.

Then we arrived at the port of Dapitan City around 8AM. It was the first time that I saw a port at the foot of a mountain range. It was fantastic! This is a very historical place as well because this is where Dr. Jose Rizal was exiled so we were so exited to get off and explore but the plan was to go to Dipolog City first to meet my uncle (father side). Then, we would leave our things at their house so that we could spend the rest of the day roaming around Dapitan City.

Coincidentally, while riding to Dipolog City, we met with Micmic (Michael Stephen Hernando) along the way. He invited us for lunch at Roxas.

Last photo before we rode off.

So there was a change of plan. Instead of roaming around Dapitan City, we just spent some time in Dipolog City. We ate breakfast at Jollibee because we don't know a good place to eat at Dipolog. Hahaha! I wasn't able to ask my uncle because we were already on our way to Dapitan City when we changed our plan. We checked out the boulevard, oh beautiful and long. Their plaza was clean and nice as well.

By the way, 2 scooperos were also on their way to Dipolog City to attend the same wedding. We planned to meet during our lunch at Roxas.

Alright, so that's it for the "Departure". Please keep posted for the next blog about our family ride to Mindanao.

The port of Dapitan City. Look at that, a mountain and a port. Beautiful!

Ride Safe! Ride Scoopy! Godspeed!