It took close to half an hour to reach Sabitang Laya, about five nautical miles south of the sandbar of Cotivas. The fan-like shaped island had two lengthy shorelines perpendicular to each other, both having a wider berm and wrack line than its beach face. The ends of these two beaches join and meet at the eastern tip, punctuated by photogenic rock outcrops.
As we approached the shore from the north, to our surprise, a young man in a dark tank-top and jeans armed with M16 and a full complement of cartridges arranged in a belt suddenly appeared out from the bushes. Overzealous and cocky, he called out in the local dialect for our skipper and his assistants to stop, directing them not to come ashore. There was an exchange between them that I was not able to comprehend and it vaguely impressed upon me that Raul was pleading for us, his guests, to see the place for ten minutes max. Then, another armed man in a similar outfit came out of the bushes from another location to join his colleague. I turned to the kids to see them unmistakably disturbed by the appearance of armed men but the adults amongst us on the boat pretended that everything was alright. The men continued conversing among themselves in Bicolano that did not take long and later Ramil instructed my family and I that we could finally disembark the outrigger. So we did and left
the three men on the boat. The two armed men disappeared into the bushes. For a moment, I thought that something ominous was about to happen.
The tense atmosphere drastically changed moments later as we meandered afar to the southern side of Sabitang Laya and spotted these other tourists, counting eight of them, saunter along the beach towards our direction who, apparently, had just disembarked from another outrigger and having been met by the same armed men. Like our experience, their boat’s operator was obviously disallowed to alight his vessel. It was at this point I had realized, rather belatedly, that these fearsome-looking men resembling odd pirates coming on strongly on our crew, were island guards patrolling the island. It could have been a totally different but pleasant story, less horrible at that I should say, had the intimidating outfit been worn by the Che Guevara look-alike back in Cotivas. And we would have thought that Madame Tussauds should be lurking around the islands for the hero’s reincarnation in wax.
The girls punted fine sand in banter from a distance as I get preoccupied, in some extended detail and scrutiny, with sedimentary patterns populating the edge of the two perpendicular shores. The craggy, karst formation was especially fascinating, in particular, a very intriguing segment that subliminally suggested an orifice - something I will hardly forget.
The overcast consistently remained and endured throughout our sojourn while there was more to be had on Sabitang Laya island. It was nearly quarter to four in the afternoon and running late at that, whereupon our skipper figured that we should get going and set to start sailing for Matukad island, close to four nautical miles farther to the south (or about half an hour travel time on Princess).
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My other blogs:
Jou San! Sham Shui Po
Traditional Hong Kong Herbal Tea House
Where Is Josephine Bracken?
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