Supply Runs to Apo Island

When you live and / or run a business on a small island like Apo Island you will have to deal with the problems of getting supplies from the mainland. We were sitting in Apo island Beach Resort having lunch the other day, I was drinking a nice ice cold Coke Light when I saw how they cooled their drinks - They are using an ice box with ice cubes to cool soft drinks and beer. I was a little impressed, knowing they only have power 6 hours a day, how do they make enough ice cubes to use them to cool stuff like that.

When the waitress came back to our table I asked her about the ice cubes, and she replied "we get ice cubes every day from the Negros mainland" - Wow, even trivial stuff like ice cubes needs to be "imported" to Apo Island.

This must result in a lot of boats going back and forth every day to keep the tourists and the resorts in Apo Island supplied with all their needs. Also the 700-800 permanent residents of Apo Island are depending on daily trips back and forth with food and other supplies.

It is a good thing Apo Island is outside the typhoon belt, they do of course get bad weather but not the long and hard typhoons we see in a lot of other places in the Philippines. Typhoons would make supply runs impossible when they hit and most Filipinos and Filipino businesses keep very low stock, so I can see that could impose a problem for Apo Island

Apo Island Pictures

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