Travelling to Cagbalete Island

Cagbalete is a small island northeast of Mauban town in Quezon province. It is accessible by a combination of  land and boat rides.  For this trip, we took a JAC liner bus from the Kamias station along EDSA near East Avenue. A detailed trip duration/cost breakdown is shown at the bottom

Once you get to Mauban town, remember to pass by the tourism office first to pay the P50 environmental fee prior to proceeding to the pier for the boat ride.  They also sell some food and drink stuff there, albeit selection is limited..

The people there also provide info as to the time the next boat arrives.   Should you need to wait for a few hours, you can also spend the time waiting here.

You may also opt to hire private boats (like the ones below).  One advantage is that they can drop you off at your resort, sparing you the 10-15 minute walk with your luggage.  Another is that it probably won't be as packed as the public commuter boat which is really crowded.  Of course hiring a private boat is more expensive especially if you have a smaller group of passengers.

Mauban pier ("Daungan" or "Pantalan")

Since you would be riding a big katig (Philippine)boat with outrigger) for the final leg, people who easily get seasick should look at the photo below to get an idea of how choppy the waves can get.

As the big boat cannot go to shallow waters, passengers will be transferred to a smaller boat packed like sardines (see small boat on the right)

Travel time from Mauban pier to Cagbalete takes around 45 minutes to an hour.  However, the large public boat docks on the island's western side (No. 2 on the map)

you

Tourism Office Cagbalete Map

Once you set foot on Cagbalete island, numerous townsfolk will offer to guide you to your resort or help carry your bags.  You can also opt to use the map above should you decide to DIY it, but you may not know the easiest trails leading to your resort.

Sabang port fishing community

We arrived at Villa Noe resort late Saturday afternoon mid-March, which is sort of the unofficial start of summer in the Philippines.  It was already low tide so the exposed mini sand bars had numerous tourists exploring and taking photos.

Here are the estimated costs per person (1 way) from Metro Manila to Cagbalete Island (As of March 2015):

Est trip duration Phil pesos  Est US $  Kamias JAC liner to Lucena 3.5 to 5 hrs 217               4.82 Lucena shuttle to Mauban  1 hr 65               1.44 Tricycle to Pier 5 - 10 mins 10               0.22 Public boat to Cagbalete < 1 hr 50               1.11 Total 1 way trip cost per person   342               7.60

Well, that's just the "Getting to Cagbalete" portion. I will create a separate article for Cagbalete itself..