Image courtesy Samal City Mayor's Office

The two-month long Visit Samal Island Festival kicks of in March with the intent of bringing Samal Island to the notice of beach-goers and adventure tourists from around the Philippines and from farther afield. The festival has all of the ingredients for a smorgasbord of fun in the sun.

The festival will showcase the beauties of Samal with a beauty pageant to find Miss Tourism Samal Island 2011, talent show, fire dancing, jingle writing and photographic exhibitions. There will be frisbee championships and the search for Miss Body Beautiful. Kite-flying contests and beach-volleyball competitions. And finally, (my favorite) culinary competitions, where the abundant native fruits (thanks to the fruit bats) and seafood are the centerpiece. Enjoy tuna? Come f

Image courtesy The Bat Camp

Monfort Bat Cave's, Bat Camp 2011. This Bat Camp event will educate and inform people of the unique role that bats play in our everyday lives and why it is important to protect & preserve bat habitats around the country. The Monfort Bat Cave was chosen as the venue for the start of Philippine Year Of The Bat activities because it is recognized as the location of the largest colony of fruit bats in the World (see “Samal Island Fruit Bats Into Guinness World Records”).

The Monfort Bat Cave Conservation Foundation (MBCCFI) in conjunction with Philippine Bat Conservation (PBCI) will organize a series of activities including research, exhibits, lectures, interactive learning experiences for kids plus special bat-emergence viewing and a dono

Image/Video courtesy Martyn Willes

Every day at sundown, when all God fearing citizens of the World are contemplating retirement to the safety of varietous shelters, the 1.8 million inhabitants of the Monfort Bat Cave are just waking to the opportunity of emergence into a night-long feast on their favourite prey: nectar and fruit . . . lots of nectar and fruit. The Monfort Bat Cave on Samal Island is home to the largest colony of fruit bats in the world (see previous World record article).

On one not-so-moonlit evening in June the GetWet camera crew braved torrential rain to bring you this 2-minute video-segment of the “bat emergence” – an event that actually spans approximately three hours, starting with one or two fruit bats gingerly inspecting the fresh air outside the cave entrance and then calling back to their friends and colleagues with a semi-audible “all

Image courtesy Martyn Willes

The impending opening of a new marina on Samal Island confirms that the island is maturing into an all-round water sports destination. The all new Holiday Oceanview Marina will open its pontoons for visiting yachts from August, 2010.

GetWet has been watching the development of the Holiday Oceanview Marina since it first came onto our radar three years ago. As with most things on Samal Island, it has taken a lot longer than originally envisaged to reach a stage of functionality. Along with the adjacent property development and sub-division, the new marina is an integral part of a water sports vacation destination, about 30-minutes from Davao International

Image courtesy Martyn Willes

The Paniki Festival (Bat Festival) celebrates the World's largest colony of fruit bats that inhabit the Monfort Bat Cave on Samal Island, Davao del Norte. Guinness World Records have this year recognised the uniqueness of Samal Island's Monfort Bat Cave and have accorded it due certification (see previous Samal Island Fruit Bats Into Guinness World Records story)

As many as 1.8 million Geoffroy’s Rousette fruit bats (Rousettus amplexicaudatus) occupy the Monfort Bat Cave (to a density of 645 bats per square meter!) and leave their bat cave on Samal Island every evening in a veritable cacophony of skin flapping, to forage for wild fruits across the expanse of the provinces adjoining the Dava

Image courtesy www.samal-island.com

UPDATED 27/03/2010

Dive Davao Festival 2010 is the latest in a series of annual scuba diving events designed to promote the superb scuba diving and snorkeling areas in the Davao Gulf, around Samal Island. Almost all of best Samal Island beach resorts take part in the event and offer special packages for scuba diving adventures, and snorkeling adventures for those who have not yet qualified as scuba divers.

The week long Dive Davao Festival 2010 (formerly: Dive The Gulf 2010) activities will climax on Saturday evening with the Caracoles Festival. The Caracoles Festival is a dusk-to-dawn party along Peñaplata Wharf and adjoining beaches, with music & dancing, food & merriment served all-nig

Photo courtesy batsanctuary.org

13th January 2010; Samal Island - Philippine fruit bats that roost on Samal Island were officially accorded the Guinness World Record of largest colony of any fruit bat species. On any given day approximately 1.8 million Geoffroy's rousette fruit bats (rousettus amplexicaudatus) inhabit the Monfort Bat Cave on Samal Island.

The Monfort Bat Cave & Conservation Foundation aims to protect the Samal Island fruit bats through research programs that lead to better education and conservation of habitat. Education programs will foster a greater understanding of the role of fruit bats and dispel the myth that fruit bats compete with humans for food when the reverse is actually true. Samal Island and the nearby provinces of Davao would not enjoy such an abundance of durian and other tropical fruits if it were not for centuries of natural seed and fertilizer dispersal undertaken free of charge by the fru

Photo courtesy Hof Gorei Beach Resort

Samal Island is now on the Internet with its own beach resort webcam.

MyCam-Asia.tv - a free travel services website that provides real-time advertising and promotion for tourist destinations around Asia - yesterday announced the installation of the first IP camera (webcam) on Samal Island, overlooking the tropical garden beach resort vista at the Hof Gorei Beach Resort.

The view from the Hof Gorei Beach Resort webcam looks almost West from Samal Island, across the superb snorkelling and scuba diving waters of the Davao Gulf and to Mount Apo - the highest peak in the Ph