Some paradise-looking places have the other side. The Philippines are full of contrasts, a magnificent beach with the softest sand can be adjacent to the most unfriendly-looking, thorny environments full of creatures that also have many spikes.
I wouldn't post any "typical" beach photos, tropical sandy beaches are beautiful and there's enough images from them in the internet. The contrast is what I loved in the Philippines.
Crystal-clear water with awesome colors is normally associated with sand, and indeed the bottom is sandy, but on the shore the mountains, rocks, and cliffs make it look really different.
Because I didn't have a waterproof box I didn't get a chance to take pictures of those impressive urchins underwater. Their spines were ridiculously long and at least two times I had to swim having these black "stings" an inch away from my face... I was stuck in one of the lagoons surrounded with cliffs and the only way out was swimming through a shallow canal where every single spot was covered with those creatures. And besides I was dumb enough to try to free dive through a cavern full of them as well, fortunately without any injuries.
Most of the rocks were impossibly sharp. Moving through a half of a mile of shores with such surfaces took me two hours one way, not sure why I did it, but I had a lot of fun. Every step really hurt my feet and left marks on my flip-flops.
Just to give some impressions about the environment:
Notice that the water often washes off the lower parts of the rocks thus creating caverns or simply a ceiling.
And another view:
I was hoping to find some cool animals, but I could only see hermit crabs, brittle stars, and some molluscs.
These guys had really interesting eyes. Especially the crabs with blue ones.
Just to show the place from the other angle and point out the contrasts:
Essentially, it's algae covering the rocks, the only soft spot on my way. This carpet had a ridiculous number of hermit crabs.
The diversity of shapes, colours, and textures was simply overloading my brain. And though the last picture below is not from the Philippines, but from Brazil, it really reminds me of how thorny things can be in the tropics.
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