Skydiving in Bantayan Island

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When I came across a blog post (which I can no longer find) on skydiving in Bantayan Island and saw that Skydive Greater Cebu was already accepting reservations, boy, the following day I found myself at the bank paying for the down payment amounting to ₱3,000. The activity cost ₱18,000 but they had an early bird promo which reduced the amount by ₱3,000. That meant I had ample time to save for the balance and my birthday. Very doable, if you ask me.

Transportation

Getting to Bantayan Island was easy-peasy. I just got on a bus heading to Hagnaya Port at Cebu North Bus Terminal and at the port took a ferry to Santa Fe. Some resorts on the island are partnered with Skydive Greater Cebu and if you’re doing the activity and you stay with them, you can get a discount for your accommodation. I stayed at Kota Beach Resort which is one.

There were no ATM’s in Santa Fe and despite having read about it I still forgot to bring my payment for the balance. Tanga lang. And so first thing on the ~~dive~~ big day, I rented a scooter and drove to the municipality of Bantayan (yes, its name is the same as the island’s) to get my hands on me moolah. I would’ve probably died, not from the dive, but from frustration if all banks were offline.

The Dive

There were four of us in the morning batch and all of us wrote the same thing on our palms that I had to change mine to “Undaunted@28“. After all, it was two days to my day. (Naman!)

Here’s our ~~fighter~~ aircraft, fighting.

Have some English ready for your innerview! I’ve been told beforehand to wear a long-sleeved shirt because of the cold but as I didn’t have anything good back then, I thought that maybe I could get away with what I’ll be wearing. Alas, they insisted that I wear their long sleeves. If you’re particular with what you wanna see in your photos and videos #OOTD, well, you have been warned.

The view from the top is simply breathtaking. Just look at those turquoises! As for the cold, I’d say that it was actually tolerable. (Tch, should’ve insisted on not wearing their shirt.)

I was told that most of the payment goes to the maintenance of the plane, which makes sense given how run-down-looking it was already. It can accommodate two pairs of skydivers.

And then it was high time to shoot my irate, let’s-do-dis, and f-yeah looks.

With the wind so hard on your face, you just gotta brace yourself. You will also be asked to lean your head back and cross your arms on your chest.

If you can’t do it now when you actually can, just do it. Did that make sense? I’m not sure either. Just never ever forget to scream your lungs out. Else you’d be the lamest person alive. Ever.

Keep your legs between your tandem instructor’s~!

At some point you will be allowed to spread your wings like a flying squirrel. (Hah! You thought it was gonna be eagle or butterfly, didn’t you? Aminin.)

The free fall was, without a doubt, the best part. You get to tumble in the sky like mad with the wind against every inch of you. When the chute was already out I was allowed to maneuver it for a bit. You simply pull the right and left handles depending on which direction you wanna go.

Kota Beach Resort

Landing on Skydive Greater Cebu’s partner resorts is also possible. The photo below shows our instructor walking away from Kota Beach Resort. It was later in the afternoon and not after our jump though as I opted to land back at the airport because I offered to take Amy, the Briton girl from Cornwall, to the beach as the place she was staying at—where I drove to and from—was not close to any of it.

We hung out for the rest of our stay on the island and even went back to the city together. One thing I remember well in our conversations was her being curious on why people wear rash guards on the beach. If you’re a Filipino, there’s NCIH that you don’t know.

One last look at the island from the port, just like the first time I laid my eyes on it, told me that skydiving in Bantayan wasn’t gonna be my last skydive experience, especially that the photos and videos were in the form of selfies. (My pores were not spared.)

P.S. You will be provided with a certificate (soft copy) and same day edit video so don’t forget to bring a USB flash drive or data cable (for your phone) for you to copy them. Allocate extra storage for the raw files, too!