Honda Bay

Honda Bay is where Palawan shows you its hand on the first day. The bay sits fifteen minutes north of Puerto Princesa, a sheltered body of water scattered with small coral islands and sandbars that are accessible by banca from the public pier at Santa Lourdes. There are no exclusive resorts controlling access here, no need to book three days in advance, no organizational complexity beyond showing up at the pier before nine, paying the conservation fee, and telling the banca operator which islands you want to visit.

I spent my first full day in Palawan here, before making my way north, and I am glad I did. The combination of low stakes and genuine beauty made it a good introduction — a way of calibrating expectations before the more elaborate arrangements of El Nido and Coron. It turned out my expectations needed raising, not lowering.

Starfish Island is the first stop on most itineraries and earns its name: the shallow sand flat around it is scattered with large blue starfish sitting in the clear water in the uncanny stillness that all starfish have, as though they arrived some time ago and are waiting for something that may or may not come. The snorkeling here is adequate rather than spectacular — the bay’s reef has some bleaching, and the visibility depends heavily on recent weather — but the shallow water is warm and the island itself, with its line of palm thatch umbrellas and cold coconuts for sale at the shade, is a pleasant place to spend the middle of the day.

Pandan Island, a private island resort in the bay, offers day-use access that includes a reef system in considerably better condition — the house reef drops quickly and the coral diversity is genuinely impressive, with sea fans, table coral, and at the drop-off edge, the occasional reef shark visible in the deeper blue below. The resort also has a seagrass bed nearby that is popular with dugongs, though I did not see one. The boatman told me they come in the early morning, before the day-use visitors arrive, which is either true or the most effective possible way of getting you to book a room.

The bay closes out beautifully at Cowrie Island, which has a restaurant in a coconut grove serving grilled seafood at noon. I ate fish kare-kare there — the fish braised in peanut sauce, served with fermented shrimp paste, a combination that sounds wrong and tastes entirely right — and sat in the shade afterward watching the banca traffic move across the bay’s surface, the water catching the afternoon light in long silver sheets. This is one of the better ways to spend a first day in the Philippines: it asks very little of you and gives back quite a lot.

When to go: November through May. Honda Bay is sheltered enough that it operates in lighter weather than the exposed coasts of El Nido, but the snorkeling and island experience are noticeably better in the dry season when the water is at its clearest. It works naturally as an arrival-day or departure-day activity from Puerto Princesa — easy to build into any itinerary without disrupting logistics.