When I saw the aerial photo below shared by some plurkers (follow me on Plurk if you like), I thought that I was looking at a Mediterranean island in Greece instead of a tropical resort island off the coast of Marinduque. This resort is the new Bellarocca Island Resort and Spa which started operations just last year in February. Since the resort’s official website said that they are “situated off the south west coast of the Marinduque province”, I checked Google Maps to see if there was any hi-res satellite imagery of the island and there was! The island is actually called Elefante Island and it’s located just off the southern tip of Marinduque island.

Photo from the Bellarocca official website

Checking in Google Earth, I discovered that the satellite photo was taken on November 2, 2005 and so the imagery predates the opening of the resort by more than three years. Thus, you can’t see in Google Maps satellite view the immaculate white architecture of the resort, the piers, and even the 9-hole golf course. But the small spit of white-sand beach is unmistakable and so I’m sure that I have the right island.

Anyway, this resort is really expensive. The cheapest room they have is US$420 per night—that’s almost 20,000 pesos! And that doesn’t include transportation costs. But if you have money to burn, then Bellarocca (“beautiful rock”) seems to be the it vacation getaway this year as evidenced by the really glowing and positive reviews on the Web.

Download KML file (for Google Earth)