Three Families taking a break at the Tamaraw Falls

Three Korean families  made up of eleven people had great fun and an exciting adventure during their stay here at  Coco Beach.
 
The Kim family had been here before and had a great holiday with us. That is why they decided to come back with two of their family friends…the Lee family and another Kim family. With two Kims and one Lee, it was bound to be an unforgettable fun adventure for all!

Ready to kayak. The families during their Mindoro adventure

Their first two days here at the resort was spent exploring the beautiful beaches and coves of Puerto Galera with its crystal clear blue waters  teeming  with colorful  marine life. The following day they had an exciting whole day adventure with Activity guides Darwin and Rommel. They visited the famous Tamaraw falls, did a 30-minute ride on carabao cart, swam in  the fresh waters of Tukuran lagoon, had a barbeque lunch by the river side and last but not the least, went kayaking downstream in the jungle river of the  town of San Teodoro.
 
According to the Kims and the Lees, it was yet another wonderful and unforgettable holiday for all of them  and they vowed to come back again with more  friends in tow!

Aside from being the vacation months for Filipinos, April to June is also the time when  companies  based in Manila come to Coco Beach for some fun activities,  rest  and  team building. Just recently, two more companies with their officer and employees spent their company outings  at Coco Beach.

Diageo Philippine group

Diageo Phil. Inc. is a  well known distributor for imported liquor like Bailey’s, Gilbey’s Premium Strength, Johnny Walker Black  and  Tequila to name a few. Headed by their coordinator, Ms. Mary Rose Bauman, the group with 60 of its employees came to the resort for  some  fun activities like playing  basketball, volleyball  and went  snorkeling and shopping.

Diageo's basketball game penalty

The group also had fun playing Basketball where the loser has to crawl in between the legs of the winning team. The group had Barbecue dinner at the beach. And the drinking party starts at 8:30pm where the bartender also set up a mini bar for them. They have Tenderloin tips, Squid balls and shanghai rolls as their pica – pica.
 
The next day those who were not too drunk have joined the free boat ride and enjoyed the beautiful and colorful marine lifes.

Kohwa Philippines turn for an outing

Kohwa Philippines, with 57 employees and their energetic bosses Yoshio Kikushima, Yasunori Kikushima and Morichika Yamada also came to Coco Beach for some parlor games and team building exercises. Some of them also tried  doing the “wogging trail”, tracing the boundaries of the resort.

Kohwa's exciting beach games

Kohwa is a maker of computer parts and printer with their site located at Calamba, Laguna. After settling to their assigned rooms the group went to the beach to start on Parlor games and  team building exercise  This time only the girls participates on all the games prepared for them and the boys do the cheering. The girls divided  into 2 team, Team A and Team B. After an hour of fun games, Janet, Eden, Meya , Jannilyn, Emilie, Heidi, May, Karen, Lyn  are the winners.
 
For these two companies, their time at Coco Beach was well worth it  with all the fun activities and great service from the staff.

The Coco Family greeted everyone in traditional Filipino clothes

Last June 12, Coco Beach celebrated the country’s 112th Independence Day,  decking the entire Carabao Restaurant  with the colors  of the Philippine flag-red,  white, blue and yellow.
 
The theme for this year’s celebration was “Paggunita sa Araw ng Kalayaan” (Remembering Our Independence Day). Our waitresses wore the traditional “baro’t saya”  that  women wore up to the early 20th century  while  the  waiters and bartenders wore the “kamiso tsina", the traditional garb for the menfolk like fishermen and farmers. The supervisors wore the famous ”Barong Tagalog”  which is the national costume of the Philippines and  is still worn  to formal functions by Filipinos, including the former presidents and  foreign dignitaries  who  come to visit our country.

Philippine pride. The Philippine flag decorated the restaurant

Chef Noel and his crew prepared  a delicious  feast  for our guests, combining traditional Filipino dishes  found all over the archipelago. The special menu  consisted of chicken “bola-bola” for appetizers; “ batchoy”  which had its origins in the Visayas and “krema ng kalabasa” for the soups, “ensaladang talong at mustasa”, red salted eggs and tomato for the salad and for the main course, it was “ginataang liempo” rolled pork belly in coconut milk, (a tribute to the Bicolanos with their coconut-based dishes), beef “salpicado” with its Spanish influence, sweet & sour fish of Chinese origin and chicken inasal- charbroiled chicken dipped in locally made vinegar. Vegetables consisted of  “pakbet”,  a top favorite among Ilocanos. Of course, everything was served  with  “pandan” or rice,  our country’s staple food, without which Filipinos  would not be satisfied  with their meal. For dessert there was “ginataang halo-halo”, a sweet dessert made up of sago, rice flour balls, “langka”  or jackfruit  and cooked in coconut oil, and  sugar as well as fresh fruits that grow abundantly in the country like mangoes (national fruit),  watermelon, pineapple and bananas.
 
The Coco Band veered off from their usual repertoire of  English songs  and  sang  plenty of original Filipino music which included  ballads and love songs including the very nationalistic song “Bayan Ko” plus other pop songs  made by Filipino composers.
 
It was indeed a simple but elegant remembrance of our bravely and courageously  fought independence and birth of the Philippines as a nation.

Coco Beach Manila Team are getting ready to welcome you to their new office

We are moving out and up! With the increasing needs of the company and to make our clients and guests more comfortable, Coco Beach's Manila Office is moving to a bigger and better office. 

Starting July 1, 2010, Coco Beach's Manila Booking Office will now be located at Unit A Ramona Apartments, 1555 M. Adriatico St., Malate, Manila. Our fab new office is conveniently opposite Robinson's Place Manila on the Adriatico corner Pedro Gil side. Easier to find and great location for those spending a few hours in our office before or after a flight...just cross the road and you can go shopping or just pass the time in a cafe.

In connection with this, our pick-up point will also adapt and adjust. Effective July 1, 2010 pick-up will be made at our new office with the same current schedule.

Aside from those bold changes, our contact details are still the same. 

Tel: (63) 2 521 52 60 / 545 05 42 / 523 03 23
Fax: 63) 2 526 69 03
Email: info@cocobeach.com
sales@cocobeach.com
reservations@cocobeach.com

We are very glad to welcome all of our friends, old and new, to visit us in the new office after July 1, 2010. 

Looking for new dive sites can be very rewarding sometimes.

During the week Coco Divers have been making some dives inside Muelle Bay to find some new and exiting dive sites.

You never know what to find on an exploration dive like this, so you better be prepared for everything and have your eyes wide open. And what did they find?

A diamond leatherjacket (Rudarius excelsus) this filefish is only known from northern Australia, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and the Philippines and if you search for it on the Internet… you can hardly find any pictures of this fish. It only growth to a length of 2.5 cm, so that maybe therefore nobody sees it. But thanks to Darwin’s sharp eyes they saw it.

A diamond leatherjacket.

They also found some pacific clown anemone shrimps (Periclimenes Brevicarpalis) in a small anemone. Its transparent body has several white spots irregularly spread over its carapace and tail, which helps it to blend in with the tentacles of the anemone. Another distinctive marking of its species are the five black-edged orange spots on its back fin. The maximum length of this shrimp is up to 2.5 cm.

A pacific clown anemone shrimp.

Another special thing they found during their dive was a Gymnodoris Aurita. This nudibranch growth up to 9 cm and has for many years only been known from the Philippines but recently discovered in southern Indonesia as well. The strange thing seeing it on their dive is, that it normally only seen at night time while hunting other nudibranchs.

A gymnodoris aurita is easily identified by its bright orange to red body and huge gills.

These were only some few of the special creatures they saw on one dive, so they are sure to find many more exiting things as they are trying to find some new unforgettable dive sites for you.