Possibly the most popular activity around El Nido is to hire a boat and visit a few of the incredible small islands that make up the Bacuit Archipelago. This "boat for hire" sign was just outside our bungalow on the beach in El Nido.

Kris and Kristen are friends with a family who owns a pump boat and they offered to take us around on a day trip to see a "best of the best" of El Nido's islands. Required uniform for the day as you can probably tell from this photo was a pair of dark blue shorts and a light blue shirt.

Christopher was our young captain for most of the days' inter-island voyage, though sometimes his dad also took over the helm. Jovelyn, Christopher's sister works at the Dara Fernandez cottages where we stayed in El Nido.

The first stop on the island hopping trip was Tapiutan Island, about an hour by boat from El Nido (click here for a close up view of the this photo).

Just off the beach of Tapiutan Island these clown fish live in their anemone.

The anemone was perched precariously at the edge of the coral wall dropoff.

In the shallow waters, this crown of thorns starfish munches coral day and night.

Instead of opting for the more traditional island hopping vittles such as fish and rice, we ordered up a stack of Squidos pizza in the early morning and brought them along with us. I think Kristen was as surprised as we all were to find the pizzas relatively intact after bouncing through the waves and getting cooked a second time in the tropical sun.

After he finished eating, Christopher was spotted on the roof of the little building on Tapiutan Island.

Before we left I figured this was a good time for an island hopping photo on the boat.

The next stop was the very appropriately named "Secret Beach" on Matinloc Island. Behind this forbidding wall of jagged basalt and crashing waves is what must be one of the hardest beaches in the world to find. Local legend has it that the Secret Beach inspired Alex Garland to write his novel "The Beach".

Boats can't access Secret Beach so the only way to get there is to swim.

And not just any swim, you have to swim through a narrow underwater crevice in the rock wall.

Once clear of the rock wall, the water is calm and flat.

Surrounded by towering rock walls like a castle, the coral lagoon of the Secret Beach is brightly lit by the tropical sun overhead.

After the swim through the Secret crevice, everyone wanted to just sit back and absorb the incredible surroundings.

The basalt rock walls that surrounded the Secret Beach are literally razor sharp and have a dark, gothic appearance up close. Don't try to climb this barefooted!

Nobody else was at the Secret Beach that day, so we had it all to ourselves.

Somehow Christopher climbed up on the jagged cliffs above us in his flip-flops. We spotted him silhouetted against the afternoon sky.

You can get an idea how steep the walls surrounding the Secret Beach are in this photo.

Because the tide level can affect how difficult it is to get in and out of the Secret Beach, we couldn't stay too long. After about an hour, we had to go back outside the walls and meet our boat.

Here's a shot to give you an idea what it looks like inside the Secret Beach lagoon. While it's not a very large beach, it really is an amazing place.

Unfortunately it was time to go. The good news was that we had a few more stops left on the island hopping trip.

Schools of small fish guard the underwater entrance to the Secret Beach.

As we left the tide was low enough to catch a glimpse of our boat moored outside. At this point in the afternoon there were some pretty strong swells coming in from the South China Sea.

Here is a shot of Kris swimming out of the entrance to the Beach.

Preston was on his way out next.

Once we were back at the boat we all had some mangoes that we picked up at the market in El Nido.

And we were off to the next island.

The last stops on the trip were the Big and Small Lagoons of Miniloc Island.

The water inside the lagoons was very calm and great for snorkeling.

The water is a brilliant shade of turquoise and contrasts nicely with the rock faces and green trees growing precariously from the walls.

This family of clown fish was living in their anemone here.

They had another roommate--this little crab was also living inside the anemone's tentacles.

After a full day of traveling between the islands everybody was tired but definitely had a great time.

We motored in to the El Nido harbor with just enough time to catch the sunset over Cadlao Island.

Back in El Nido and ready for the next adventure.