A few years ago, when typhoon Odette pummeled southern Philippines but luckily spared parts of Northern Palawan, we found a pleasant refuge and downtime at Sunlight Ecotourism Island Resort (SETIR) on Culion Island during the tail end of our Coron, Palawan trip. We eventually made it to Culion after two days of island hopping and getting holed up in another Sunlight property in Coron town hotel while weathering the storm.

The new Salepan Villas of SETIR numbers around 30

A few days after typhoon Odette got us holed up in our hotel in Coron, we finally saw blue skies and the green light from the Philippine Coast Guard to set out on a sea voyage to Culion Island. Returning to the island formerly known as the “Leper Colony”, had me revisiting memories of dread when I first found out about its history from a prior visit almost a decade ago.

Photo credit: Out of Town Blog