Guimaras: SEAFDEC

When we visit Guimaras, one of the activities that we were looking forward to experience was the island hopping. We were lucky to meet this boatman , Kuya When who toured us to seven of the most amazing sights in Guimaras. And to start sharing to all of you the amazing trip that we had with Kuya When, I'll start it with the first destination where our motored boat took us - SEAFDEC.

SEAFDEC stands for South East Asian Fisheries Development Center. It is a government-owned facility that takes care and cultures fishes for the livelihood of the locals and at the same time a spot to visit here in Guimaras.

It was my first time to visit such facility, and seeing and visiting a place like this means a lot to me.

SEAFDEC is roughly a 30-minute boat ride from our resort - Raymen Resort. At far, this place looks like a plain fish pen, but when we got to reach it and bravely laid our feet on those planks, it gave us the feeling that we are there to learn something , especially when I saw this sign:

A Php25.00 entrance fee or should I say donation will be asked to every visitor. At first, I was really hesitant to pay that, but after our trip here, I even gave a tip to our guide, Kuya Richard for all the fun and knowledge he shared to us.

We were glad that Kuya Richard assisted us from the time we stepped inside the facility up to the moment we bid goodbye to him. He was a good guide, sharing us some good information about the fishes that they cultured and even about the facility. And with his Illonggo accent, for sure, you'll feel at ease with this guy. Hehehe.

Anyways, going back to SEAFDEC, the first cage that we visited was the pen where these three super huge Grouper or Lapu-Lapu fishes where housing. This was the biggest grouper that I've seen in my entire life, and according to Kuya Richard these fishes are aged 23 years old! Whoa, right? 

Actually, since they are treating them as their pets, they've given them names. They are Mickey, Kiray and Dino. Hehe. Kuya Ronald told us not to touch the water for these three giants may tear off your hand - like dogs. So be careful when you visit them, all right?

After that Kuya Richard guided us to the other groupers' pen that they are culturing. These fishes here looks a little normal but still bigger, and Kuya Richard told us that they don't eat nor sell these fishes here. SEAFDEC was designed to breed animals only. Once these fishes here laid eggs, they are taking it to the other laboratory to take good care of them and then sell the. So, see, only the offspring were sold. Hehe.

Then, he also introduced us to the other fishes that they are breeding - the Milk Fish or Bangus.

The mature milk fishes were divided into to two sections, the ones that are harmless, where we got a chance to feed them, and the the ones with teeth, again we were advise not to place our hands in the water for they might bit it.

Kuya Richard gave us some pellets to have the chance of feeding live milk fishes with our hands submerge in the water. It was a first to me, and the feeling was tingling and scary at the same time. Scary because, I have this thought behind my head that there might be one or two milk fishes there with teeth who got in that cage. Heheh. But Kuya Richard assured to us that the fishes in this cage are all safe since he is the one that's been taking good care of the,.

Thankfully, we survived the experience and really enjoyed it.

After some more minutes of visiting other cages and Q&As, it's time to leave because we have more islands to visit, but since we were "friends" with Kuya Richard, he shared to us one more sea creature that made this whole place popular - the Abalone.

He said that abalones are very expensive because they export them to other Asian countries where they cook and eat them, and Guimaras is considered one of best exporters of it. He said that it was really delicious, but it seems not to me. Hehehe.

We bid goodbye to the Kuya Richard and to the rest of SEAFDEC with a big smile on our faces and thanked them for the newly acquired knowledge that we will be taking anywhere we go.

Thank you, SEAFDEC! Thank you, Kuya Richard! ^_^ 
Till next time!