My trip to Cagbalete island was canceled due to the fickle weather in Quezon province (its facing the Pacific Ocean, east side of Luzon). But another one quickly opened up, a group of friends wanted to go to Tambobong beach (on Pangasinan's west coast), they've asked me to take them there for the longest time. (Btw, Tambobong was split into two barangays: Tambobong and Osmeña. However some folks still refer to the beach front in Osmeña as Tambobong beach).

It was a long drive, we left Manila at around midnight and drove north to Pangasinan via Tarlac. The road is well paved until we reached the town of Burgos in Pangasinan. There are two roads to Tambobong/Osmeña: one is via Dasol - about 20km of extremely rough road, the other one is via Burgos - about 25km of narrow partly cemented road. I opted to go via the latter, and boy did I wish I had that GPS! Although I am familiar with the route, navigating the dusty backroads at night was a bit different. I can't see the landmarks and twice we took the wrong fork. The "misadventure" was enough to put every one on alert mode :).

We reach the fishing village just before dawn, just in time to see the first rays of the day. The rest tried to catch up on their sleep (I was awake for 24 hours already by the time we reached Osmeña), but two of us decided to head down to the beach and quickly got to work :).


The beautiful hues of the dawn were enough of a reward for the long trip.


The sky was clear, indicating we will have a fine day ahead of us. The tones and colors intensified just before the sun popped out of the horizon.


The hues of red, pink, and magenta were gone within a few minutes after the sun rose. The "magic hour" is really just a couple of minutes.

We headed back to our host's house after we had our takes. Time to unpack stuff and cook breakfast. We still have a long day ahead of us, and snorkeling is hard work. :)