Siargao power outage

If things are dodgy with the mains, I would try alternatives at least as a backup.

Solar, wind, and water are all possible, but charger/inverters will do the job for short blackouts.

A small generator is possible as well. Even a cheap and nasty 1kw thing will keep the lights on the fridge cold.

It is sad to see Siargao and Bucas islands lost power due to lack of maintenance and inspections of the underwater 34.5 kv cables. I heard those were installed 30 years ago. I saw the pictures of the crew doing inspection on the cables a few days ago. I noticed everyone was wearing short pants and flip-flops. I cancelled my 1 week vacation at Siargao losing 4 non-refundable airfares at CebGo, a discount airline. My Airbnb had been reaching to me to come. If one part of the cable had this much damaged, I would think the other few hundred meters of the same cable will have similar condition.
Power to the islands is now restored but Siargao is now a notch or two lower in my list.
Hello San Juan, La Union.
What are your thoughts? - @Jackson4

Presumably you would have flown in to Sayak airport on the island. Was the airport operational capacity affected by the power outage? If so the airline could not fly and you could claim on your travel insurance policy.

If its not power outages its the weather. That area sticks out like a sore thumb and regularly gets blasted by tropical storms.

@Jackson4

Home is where you make it and we all have reasons and choices.

San Juan La Union these days is super expensive and ridiculously busy on weekends, even where we live in Bacnotan is now expensive.

Thing is power outages are a fact of life in all parts of the Philippines even major cities.

Good luck with your search.

Cheers, Steve.

        Sounds like Jackson4 is looking for surfing.  Perhaps someone could suggest spots on Mindanao.  Had a guy in the US Navy tell me a few years ago some of the best surfing in the Philippines is on Mindanao.  He was not allowed to go because of the US restrictions on all of Mindanao for all government workers.

I consider myself and my family as tourists at this time since we are living out of hotels and airbnbs short term. It is very hard for me to know if vendors are ripping me off or not since I do not have a reference point. Such is life for now for me. All I can do is haggle while I hope they blink first. Yeah I cannot surf due to the mileage under my belt. My two adult sons will. 😀 I'll be making sand castles, watch the sunset and wonder what I did wrong.

    Sounds like Jackson4 is looking for surfing. Perhaps someone could suggest spots on Mindanao. Had a guy in the US Navy tell me a few years ago some of the best surfing in the Philippines is on Mindanao. He was not allowed to go because of the US restrictions on all of Mindanao for all government workers. - @mugtech

My wife has a Filipina friend married to a Caucasian. She and her husband retired and now lives on a beach in Davao. He did a tour or two somewhere in the world as a military personnel not sure if frontline soldier or support. The wife has a beachfront property in Davao where they built their retirement home. I guess some areas in Mindanao might be safer than others.

@Jackson4

The same can be said about all countries, safe places to live and other places you don't visit. Though I have never visited Mindanao I have heard some great reports with expats having a wonderful life there but many warn about the south west for safety.

As said home is where you make it but look long and hard before making what could be a long time living there.

We looked at this area where we are now for years before putting down stumps,,,,,,, not looked back and will be my final days here, Main thing is to be happy and content.

OMO.

Cheers, Steve.

We bought on Siargao Island when I was last posting here....

Thanks to all the replies I got in support with regards to the idiots on this forum that seem to be managing it or are the constant ridiculing bored expat type that get their jollies from demeaning anything anybody has to say except for themselves and their own self interested posts that we are all to bow our heads too.

So back to Siargao Island, there were a lot of rumours and I suspect just that of ship dragging anchor through lines and so on and so forth, I think the reality is as I have seen the same pics as you and talked to the port authority as well, it seems to be maintenance.

How ever nobody is ruling out the actor theory. Investigations ongoing.....

I have never flown that airline in question, the entire Island was out except for our communities around Pacifico & Pilar.

Most of us are off grid as well as the usual localised facilities. There are now as of Dec 31 2025, 4,793 perm foreign residents that call the Island their home. 101,000 localised Filipinos. Not that many when you consider how big the Island is.

Every 50 years there is a 5 year turning circle of bad weather coming in from NE Palau and anywhere between "0" to "23/5 N" degrees always gets hit within that yearly range. I dont know the exact amount of time it has been happening but it is unusual for it to be continuing longer than the 5 year period.

I rode my bike up from Gensan through to Rosario and kept on the AH26 to San Fran because of the earth quakes at the time, I saw some whiteman that rode in through the forested area, didn't even know there was a road that could reach the pacific road run and they said "if you want a bike to be functional, keep on the AH26 and ride through to Surigao City.

The pacific road got hit hard, holes in the road and elephant would fall in, landslides and so forth.

There were a couple of thousand after shocks even on Siargao Island which made us all a little dizzy after a week of them.

I have never experienced that feeling from an Earth Quake, but there were a few big ones even though they were a long way from our Island.

Getting back to the power outage. In the north of the Island, there is land that is now allocated for alternative energy.

Elon Musk is now on the Island, but he has nothing to do with this idea as far as I know, and localised Bigger Business has allocated land on the Island to produce their own energy source as well. This has got up the nose of the local Mayor as it has embarrassed him, but nothing he can do about local land being utilised for power sources, and if he rejected any application he would definitely not be returned to his office post.

The weather will eventually normalise for the next 50 year cycle, if in fact that is still the normalised cycle, weather all over the world seems to be changing, but you will find in due course Siargao Island will become a better locality for you & your family to have an enjoyable holiday here. Bitumen roads now are a god send right around the Island, never thought that would happen...International airport starting soon to coincide with our new International Port, eventually we will become apart of the normalised societal genre and be well ahead of tourist locations...allbeit it will take a while.

PS: If you surf, there are many breaks on the eastern side of the Island.

A lot of old Bali-ites are now making it home to ride out through tour last wave.

For us, it was all about the "Mike Boyum Story". From G-Land to Tuason Point or now called Cloud 9.

If you are of that elk, our Island has an amazing history few know about, from Black Birding to now a tourist destination.

If it is surf you are looking for, you can not do better than 9 on a good day...even on a bad day.

https://www.stealthboards.com/blogs/ste … ps/cloud-9