WEEKENDER 
Underwater Boracay 
By Norman P. Aquino
July 7, 2000 

I went to Boracay in what is supposed to be a rainy, windy June - and I went there alone. It was my first encounter with the so-called island paradise, also known for its cool nightlife, but I never spent a night of my whole seven days in any of its famous bars. Call me hermitic or downright primitive but bar hopping just probably does not appeal to me. I went to Boracay with one thing in mind: enjoy the beach and the waters and skin-dive to death.

Save for the day when it rained, I spent my week-long sabbatical exploring Boracay's reefs. The island, famous for its fine white sands that stay cool even under the summer sun, is also fast becoming a diver's mecca. Diving schools abound along the four-kilometer stretch of the beach from stations one to three, offering one-day fun tours and open water courses that can last up to four days. For cash-strapped visitors or those who simply prefer to explore the ocean without the hassles of high-tech diving gears, there are also a number of booths offering whole-day boat tours that cost around P300, lunch included.

As soon as I arrived in Boracay on a Monday afternoon, I immediately enlisted for the following day's voyage. A tourist guide brought me to Allan's Fun Tour, one of the more popular booths (I was told that there are now more than 10 tour outfits) that offer the boat tour seven days a week. 

Tambisaan reef

Tuesday was an exceptionally sunny day and despite the onset of the rainy season, the waves, one of the boatmen tells me, are quite manageable.

Meeting place was in front of the booth in station three at exactly 9:45 a.m. The previous day, I was told that there was no room for "Filipino time," and that latecomers would simply be left behind. I found out that this was not exactly true. I arrived five minutes late and we had to wait for another 10 minutes for others before the boat finally sailed. Of the 10 tourists, I was the only local. There were four Koreans, three Americans and two Australians and eight were traveling as pairs.

The boat left at exactly 10 a.m., working its way through Sulu Sea and Tabon Strait between Boracay and Caticlan toward the other end of the island on Sibuyan Sea. The view of the verdant cliffs and small rocky islands we passed by was breathtaking. We occasionally saw fishermen in small bancas just under the steep mountain face, some casting their nets while others dove complete with a mask and a harpoon in hand.

After about 45 minutes, we were dropped off our first snorkeling site: Tambisaan reef near Crocodile Island. Everyone was really excited about the whole thing and it was only a matter of minutes before everybody, save one, wore his face mask, two diving fins (flippers) and the snorkel itself, and got off the boat for a swim. The moment I dove and got a glimpse of the underwater jungle, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The euphoria of being surrounded by colorful fish of all shapes and sizes was hard to equal. It was a very thrilling experience. To be actually mingling with the fishes and other life forms underneath, almost impervious to gravity, was simply quite illusory.

Tambisaan reef, I soon find out, also has its share of the unsightly. Quite a large part of the area looked like an underwater desert, with bleached skeletons and branches broken off scattered about the seafloor. There were no fish, no weeds and my impulse was to leave the area at once. After almost an hour of exploration, it was time to go.

Ilig-Iligan reef

From Tambisaan, the group stopped over Kampulan beach, where we had barbecued pork and chicken, grilled milkfish and buttered vegetables for lunch. Of course, it would not have been complete without the bottled mineral water, which was also useful for storing Boracay's fine-as-coffee sand for keepsake. A few minutes more of swimming and we were off for the second snorkeling site: Ilig-Iligan reef near Punta-Ina.

Ilig-Iligan was much better than Tambisaan in all aspects - there were more live coral reefs, more fish and there was more variety in terms of color and life. Measuring about one to two meters deep, the area teemed with corals of different types, colors and sizes - white, brown, purple and green lace coral as wide as two meters, green staghorn coral, brown mushroom coral and yellow and red brain coral as big as a square meter, to name just a few. I was told that there were also blue corals in the area, though I never got to see one.

Once thought to be made up of plants, coral is now known to be a limestone formation made by communities of animals called polyps. The soft-bodied coral polyp, measuring less than an inch in diameter, links itself to its neighbor with mucus-covered tissue. The coral looks like stone in the daytime, since the polyps withdraw into their skeletons. But it is transformed at night as their extended tentacles wave gently, giving the reef a soft, fuzzy appearance. The stony "tree" the polyps share is their combined skeleton, cemented together by the extraction of calcium carbonate from the seawater.

Although stony coral looks tough, it is extremely fragile. Human contact can cause damage, so wise divers avoid handling it and careful boaters avoid anchoring on it. Direct impact by boat keels destroys it. Too, temperature extremes can damage and kill coral. The coral reefs we visited during that boat tour were the atoll type, which are typically horseshoe-shaped coral islands around a shallow lagoon.

Aside from the corals, I feasted on the schools of small blue fish that darted through the crystal clear water, as well as on several clown fish circling sea anemones whose white snake-like shoots moved like Medusa's hair. There were also the foot-long blue swordfish, tiger fish and tan lion fish that tried to kiss my legs. And how could I forget the black-gray sea snake that glided toward a hole on the lace coral, the sight of which froze me? And what about the black-yellow sea snake whose head sprung like a cobra after I stumbled upon it, as if it was ready to attack? That scene had me literally swimming fast toward the boat and thanks to the swim fins, I never had a hard time doing so. Anyway, time went by so fast I didn't realize it was time to go. Adam, one of the tourists who taught me the right way of snorkeling (let your arms drift lazily by your side and use your flippers only, with long, steady strokes, keeping your knees slightly bent) had to swim toward me to tell me the boat was about to leave. It was a little past 3 p.m.

I learned later from one of the boatmen that the snake is poisonous. I was assured though that these creatures are relatively harmless as long as you don't mess with them. I was also told that divers discourage fish feeding in snorkel sites like these since fish tend to become ill-mannered, which explained my experience with the lion fish.

Ordinarily, tourists are taken to where the boat left off at station three, but we had to go back the same route toward Bulabog, which is on the other side of the white beach, because of the strong wind and current. Tourists would have to take the tricycle to the white beach, which is only three to 10 minutes away. One can also choose to walk, which most foreign tourists do. The boatman said that during the summer season (March to May) when the waves are not so big, tourists get to visit around five to seven snorkel sites, including the reefs near Lapuz-Lapuz, Manoc-Manoc and Cagban beaches, as well as the ones near Punta-Bunga, Balinghai and Diniwid beaches near central Boracay. On that Tuesday afternoon, for instance, the group failed to stop by Rain Forest Reef, which was then too shallow. The current in the lagoons were also very strong and snorkel enthusiasts were advised not to venture far from the boat unless they're experienced swimmers. We also missed the ever-famous Puka beach - whose name comes from the small white puka shells that Boracay is also famous for - because of the strong waves. Despite the nuisances and everything, that tour was really worth the while. We reached the Bulabog harbor at exactly 5 p.m., with everyone still recounting the day's happening.

Puka beach

Wednesday was another sunlit day. This time, however, we were 15 and mostly Filipinos. The boat was bigger and could thus better stand the waves. As before, Tambisaan reef was the first stop and curiously, it didn't look the same as the previous day. Except for myself and the two young Japanese tourists, everybody stayed near the boat with their life jackets on, clasping the pair of bamboo poles that keep the boat's balance. Lunch was in the same place as the previous day (and the same food, too). At about 2 p.m., we were off again to Ilig-Iligan which, as with my experience with Tambisaan, also looked different. The current was stronger, though, and there were fewer snorkelers in sight. After almost an hour of gliding through the waters, the boat headed for Puka beach. 

The waters were as clear as the white beach in central Boracay although not as powdery. That conspicuous dead tree branch on the middle of the beach was still there (I had seen it in friends' pictures before) and so were the circle of women sitting at the far right end of the beach selling beaded necklaces and bracelets. The bracelets sold for three for P100 while the necklaces cost as high as P120. The sight of the women gave the impression that they were making the beads right there on the beach, which I found out later to be false. One can go to the local market where a number of souvenir shops sell bracelets for as low as P25 each. Talk about good presentation.

Rain Forest Reef

On Friday (too bad it rained the whole Thursday), the wind was too strong we had to board the boat at the other side of the island in Bulabog. Immediately, we headed for Rain Forest Reef, which looked exactly like Tambisaan. There was nothing extraordinary about it except that it was here that I found a seashell called tirik in the vernacular. It looked like a dome about four inches in diameter and what attracted me to this specimen were its colorful parabolic arcs running from a point on its base toward a small hole at the center top all the way to the opposite base. The thin shell has five white, five purple and 10 green alternating and intersecting half circles, creating the image of an ornate asterisk. To make the story short, it was only on this reef that I got to see this interesting find. 

In the afternoon, we revisited Ilig-Iligan and Puka beach but we did not tarry because of the not so good weather. From Puka beach, we headed toward Punta-Ina in the east and then turned southeast toward Bulabog. This time, the tour was finished an hour earlier and I headed for home, still hesitating to leave.

I could relate my visit to Boracay's reefs on and on but one thing's for sure: each tour was different and there was always a different angle to my snorkeling experience. Now I find myself back in the big city, in crowds and traffic, assaulted by noise, stress building again. 

But the lovely memories of my skin-diving experience in Boracay I have carried back with me. In quiet reverie I once again glide through the waters, feasting my eyes on God's wonderful underwater creation. I might go back next year to get a glimpse of the island's wonders deeper via scuba diving, but certainly, I am not ruling out snorkeling through Boracay's marvelous coral reefs. No doubt, it's one great reason to go back - even absent the island's so-called nightlife. 

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