Pagudpud Warnings and Dangers

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When you go strolling around the beach, you'll find some areas with huge rocks. Before you tread on them, hold the surface with your hand to see if they are slippery. Wet Rocks covered with moss or seaweeds are normally slippery so make sure your beach shoes or sandals have good traction. And even if you have footwear with good traction, be careful of the strong waves that splash on the rocks because you might be off-balanced. My niece and her friend almost had a bad fall when they explored the other side of the beach, so be extra careful.

The beach has a gradient slope but be forewarned of sudden drop off and undercurrent at certain points. We heard talks of near drowning of tourists. Waves can also be strong sometimes. My friend was almost stripped off of her bikini when strong waves swept her.

Parents/guardians must provide children with life vests; floaters for kids are not enough protection. Adult non-swimmers could be safer with life vests, too. As a general rule, it would be wise not to go so far from the shore.

If you don't have your bathing suit with you and you have been to a couple of falls already, you can pass up Kaibigan Falls. It wouldn't be worth the effort if you're just gonna stay there for 5 minutes taking pictures. Plus you can't avoid having scrapes and cuts on your legs

You will see this store a few meters to the right of the entrance sign of Blue Lagoon.

Delia, the owner of this store, sold us rotten curacha, a type of crustacean similar to lobster. We were asking her to refund our money, but she just told varying stories about why she cannot give us our money back. We ended up getting only 100 pesos in cash from her and the rest of the money was paid in kind - some canned goods and bags of chips from her store.

However, in all the times I've been to Pagudpud and Ilocos Norte, this was the only time I encountered a bad incident like this.

My family and I went to Pagudpud last April 29 and stayed at Saud Beach Resort til May 1. This is our first time to visit the place so I asked the Manager how's the water in the beach. She assured me that the beach is safe " no whirlpool, no sudden drop, no strong current...and we have life guard " so, the following day my toddlers headed for a swim with their floaters accompanied by their yaya. I stayed for a while at the room to prepare for their clothes after they take their swim while my husband went into taking pictures. Later on I have decided to try the waters for my son doesn't like to go to the waters probably due to the strong waves. While I was introducing my 3 year old son to go to the water, my yaya cried for help she was holding my 4 year old daughter (who's wearing floater). I thought "pinupulikat" so I asked my son to stay at the shoreline while I went and check my yaya and daughter. We are just 3-5 meters away from the shoreline when I experienced myself a sudden drop in the water too. I got scared coz I thought we are going to die. My yaya is pulling me below while I was trying to grab my daughter. Instinct told me to shout as loud as I can for help. Luckily a guy and a girl saw us but it took them a few minutes before the guy decided to rescue us probably thinking if we were just fooling around. Gosh, if not for that guy we have been lost already. You can imagine how scared we were and there's NO LIFEGUARD AROUND. Saud's lifeguard pala is the SECURITY GUARD which of course is tending to the vehicles.!!! I could curse that Manager! Saud Beach Resort is the most expensive resort in the area and there's no life guard!!!

So words of advice if you are travelling with kids, keep an eye on your kids and have them wear a LIFE VEST and ask them to swim near people whom you think can see them at once in case something bad happens.

It,s true there are sudden drops in the water, I snorkled and saw the wavy sandbed. So don't go below chest level if you don't know how to swim, especially if you are with children.

there are certain areas in the sea that are very rocky while in some places there's a sudden decline in the sand
we encountered a few friendly jellyfish who stung one of us!