Freediving at Fat's Aquapark Resort in Barili, Cebu

Hi Hiveans! It's been like eons since I posted. Many things had happened - got a side hustle as a Financial Advisor, faced a lot of challenges at home, and been busy with a lot of stuff. And here I am back for another freediving post as I was able to go back to it finally after 3 months!!!

The Philippines had a lot of holidays recently due to the Elections, All Saint's Day, and All Soul's Day. Due to this, my college friends who were also my dive buddies organized a freediving excursion on All Soul's Day, as none of us had work on that day. We were looking for a different spot because every time we go for a freediving trip, we always go to Kontiki in Lapu-Lapu City and we want to experience something new. We had choices like in Alegria where there are awesome underwater statues but it was too far, and as well as in Barili, a waterpark but nearer than the other one. So we opted to go to Barili this time.

Getting to Barili

Lucky me, my college friends have their cars so we had the opportunity to travel to Barili with convenience. However, if you want to go to Barili, you may ride a bus to Cebu South Bus Terminal in Cebu City. The bus will not reach the destination right away, so you may need to hail a motorcycle taxi.

Fat's Aquapark Resort

Our diving spot for today is in Fat's Aquapark Resort in Barili. It is a resort that offers day use (I'm not sure if they have rooms for overnight though). They have a long boardwalk with high diving boards, cottages, and some picturesque photo walls. They also have a small parking space and it tends to be full easily, so we had to park on the road.

We had to pay P10 (0.18USD) for the day-use entrance fee, while we had to pay P2,000 (35USD) for the cottage rent good for 10 pax.

After settling down and changing clothes, we embarked on a fun dive adventure.

Freediving Experience

When we were just going to our destination, we were joking around that the place would be an "expectation vs reality". One of our dive buddies was actually telling us that this place was wonderful before but when Typhoon Odette hit, the place was devasted. So when we were about to dive, we were just not expecting much. Nevertheless, the weather that day was fine but in the distance were dark clouds like there was a looming storm.

The aquapark actually sits on a reef side. They do have colorful and huge corals and some colored fish. Unfortunately, the visibility that day was very poor. Because of that, we were actually thinking of pursuing Moalboal instead hahaha! But since we would need another hour to travel there, we just opted to continue our fun dive on the shallow part of the aquapark.

As mentioned earlier, Fat's Aquapark Resort offers high diving boards. These diving boards are constructed with wood which means there are wood foundation structures installed on the shallow part of the sea bed. When we checked under, it kinda resembles a port where there are fishes, corals, and rock oysters. Since the deeper parts had poor visibility, we decided to take turns diving under the diving board structure and did awra poses.

After a few moments, we also had fun taking turns trying to strike a pose like a sleeping bat which is very difficult to do due to our buoyancy hahaha! We just couldn't stay put hahaha!

Everyone went through and had small cuts due to the rock oysters, we decided to call it done and went home. It was also 3 in the afternoon when we departed.

We dropped by Carcar's Lechon for lunch (more like lunch + dinner) at around 3PM. After that, we went home!!!

Overall, it would've been an amazing experience if the visibility of the sea was good. It was on a reef side and there were huge and colorful corals, and I believe if we go deeper, we could find more eye-pleasing marine wonders. Nevertheless, we still seized the moment and had fun by finding the humor in every unfortunate situation.

That's it for today and see you next time!