Have you ever wanted to go to a lonely small island in the middle of the ocean where you cannot see land in any direction? And just chill, kitesurf, have barbecues, kitesurf, and sleep? I bet you have, and if you are in the Philippines, there is a way of doing all this, by going to Seco Island. That is what we did for two days, and it was totally worth it.
Seco Island kitesurfing trip
This is how we did the kitesurfing trip to Seco Island: We started by getting up early in the morning at Boracay, 05:00 to be exact. We headed down to the kitecenter and got our gear. We had booked our kitesurfing trip to Seco some days before in a kitecentre, they have a trip every week if you just check some different centers. We took tricycles to the harbour, and took a boat over to Caticlan. From Caticlan we took jeepneys down to Culasi, a trip that took a little over an hour. In Culasi we took a boat, our sweet Orange Wave.
Nice Philippinian boat that took us to Seco
If it is windy when you go (ie always), you should be prepared of getting wet. The boats are stable, but the waves are really big out there, and a lot of water splashes over the boat. On the way out to the island you drive with the waves, so the splashing is not so hard. On the way back on the other hand, the boat meets every wave with a big splash.
When we had been sitting on the roof of the boat for 2,5 hours, and did not see the land behind us any more, we finally saw a couple of palms sticking up from the water. Seco Island was right ahed.
Seco Island seen from the boat
We unpacked our kites and kiteboards very fast and pumped our kites. The small ones. The wind was 25-30 knots, and I’ve understood that that is the usual situation. There is a reef around the whole island, that makes the water quite flat. And downwind from the island, the water is like a floor. It is really flat and perfect for freestyle tricks. Too bad the wind was a little too strong for that kind of riding, but we managed to boost some big airs anyway.
We kitesurfed until the sunset, and after that there was time for an amazing barbeque with tuna, pork meat, chicken and vegetables that the boat crew grilled. Then we all sat around the campfire enjoying beverages. Since almost everyone on the trip was Scandinaves, the guide had brought extra much alcohol (San Miguel beers and Tanduay rum, who could have guessed that). I wonder where she got those thoughts from? Anyway, when the boat crew had got some amount of Tanduay and Cola, they started entertaining. There were some dancing, captain forward, captain back… You need to go check it yourselves.
Kitesurfing until sunset at Seco Island
There were some windshields to sleep under, but we just slept under kites and watched the stars.
The next morning we got up early and had some breakfast as long as waiting for the tide to get so high that we could ride again. About 9 in the morning we could ride again. Then we kitesurfed until half past twelve, had some lunch, and was about to leave with the boat again. Though there were some delay when the boat had to leave for rescuing another boat that had engine problems and was drifting in the big waves some miles away, on its way back from the luxury islands of Cujo. No problem for us, more time on the island. The boat pulled them back Seco Island, and we could head back home.
On the way back the waves were enormous, and everyone on the boat was soaking wet when arriving to land three hours later. But happy, and very tired. Some of us were also kitesurfing back, but since the wind was blowing against us, they could not make it back to Culasi, and had to head for the shore a little more south, and take tricycles back. They saw a dolphin as well when kitesurfing on the open sea. We did not see any, but a lot of flyfish instead.
Quick facts about Seco Island and kitesurfing there
- Seco Island is located 45 kilometers west from the big Panay island.
- With boat it takes about 2-4 hours, depending on the wind.
- There is no toilet, no shower, no electricity, no buildings, no phone coverage, there is litterally nothing else than sand, sun and wind on Seco.
- If you want to sleep more comfortable, you can also hire a big catamaran and sail all the way from Boracay. That would have made living a lot more comfortable, and you can probably stay a lot longer. But it is also a lot more expensive.
- The price for a kitesurfing trip to Seco island was 7500 php for one night, and 8500 for two or three nights. A little pricy I think, but still totally worth it.
- You will also see some fisherman on Seco, where they go for eating and drying their fish.
Seco islands on Google maps:
As you see, it is not even visible. That means it is really small.
Comfortable living at Seco Island?
As said, there are nothing that is even close to comfortable living (toilets and shit) on Seco Island, but there were some russians that had found out how to do for being able to spend some more time on Seco Island, the answer was hiring a luxury Catamaran and sail all the way from Boracay, and stay in the floating apartment when not kitesurfing. I think that was kind of awesome. A catamaran kitesurfing trip cannot be bad. Though, I heard that the catamaran might cost 150$ per day per person to rent. Though, I am not sure, and the russians seemed to enjoy it a lot.
If you want to live comfortable when kitesurfing at Seco, rent a catamaran
Pictures from the Seco kitesurfing trip
Below you find some of the thousand images we took at Seco.