Baler Diaries:Big Waves from the Pacific

Baler is the capital of Aurora Province. It is located at the east coast of the main island of Luzon. The way in getting to Baler itself is considered as additional attraction on this place. The lush forest of the Sierra Madre Mountain range covered the large proportion of Aurora.

Sabang Beach

When you reached the town proper of Baler, the nearest and easiest way to catch the waves coming from the Pacific Ocean is by going to Sabang Beach. Getting to this place will only takes 5-10minutes by riding a tricycle from the bus terminal or by driving your own private vehicle.

Sabang Beach is the main beach resort in Baler. It is the place where you can find and watch surfing enthusiasts.The water is clean and the waves are strong. Swimming at this beach is allowed only during daytime and at night you couldn't see the water. You can only hear the splashes of the waves to the coastline.Since it's an open water and part of the Pacific ocean, tourists specially children are not allowed to go beyond the perimeter line. The current is strong enough to pull a small kid. But there are life guards around who always ready in time of emergency.

APEC Beach Boys

At the second day of our vacation in Aurora, me and my friends, Edson and Sir Jerico decided to took a surfing lesson at Sabang beach. It was our first time to do this kind of surface water sport. Along the beach there are lots of establishments that offers surfing lessons for amateur and even for first timers like us. 

At the front of the beach, we found Baler Surf. Baler Surf is located at Sabang Beach near Bay's Inn restaurant. It offers surfing lessons, Board rentals and tours. Their surfing lessons worth P350 only per hour with personal instructor that will guide you the whole time of your surfing session. But if you already know how to surf you can just rent a surf board for only P200 pesos.

Surfing Lesson with our Instructor

The wave here is seasonal. So if you're a professional surfer and your looking for the bigger waves, the best time for you to visit this place is during the months of October to February. They conduct surfing tournaments every month of February as part of this town celebration of Aurora Day.

Best Shot ni Sir Jerico

For first timer like us, the height of the waves when we visited Baler was enough for us to learn the moves. whoooohooo. It's really enjoyable to do surfing specially for the first time.ehehe!  Through the effort of our instructors, we  easily surpassed the challenge of every waves that we encountered. Surfing is like a whole day session of workout in a gym. It needs more power and efforts. 

whooooah!!!

I'm not scared of water and even in waves, that's why at my first try to stand up in the surf board I easily made it. hahaha! But there were so many times that I've lost my balance and fell down. We stand and fall but our willingness to get the best waves was on it's climax. So we continued paddling and surfing. 

At the end of the session we felt so tired and thirsty, sarap mag-shower nito at pagkatapos ay uminom ng super lamig na fruitshakes. The experience of keeping your balance on the surf board is an epic experience. It feels like your a professional surfer riding on the waves. Boom! Thanks to our instructors, we've learned the proper and basic way on surfing. Thumbs up for Baler Surf service! Until next time...

Other Things To Do:

Surfing is not the only thing you can do here in Sabang Beach. You can also try kayaking, scuba diving and drive an ATV at the fine sandy coastline of the beach. But if you don't want to spend much, you can also play Frisbee together with your friends.