Sugar Beach is Sipalay's showpiece: a long arc of fine white sand fringed with coconut palms, a 15-minute pump-boat ride from the city proper. The beach is lined with a string of small resorts — mostly owner-managed, ranging from simple bamboo huts to more comfortable cottages — and the overall feel is relaxed and low-key in a way that the more developed parts of the Visayas have long since lost.
The water is calm, warm, and clear enough for snorkelling around the reef that sits just offshore. Most of the resorts have their own house reefs and can organise boat trips to the wider dive sites. In the evenings the beach empties of day visitors and becomes the domain of resort guests and the occasional expat who has settled here permanently.