Calumbuyan

Mang Crisanto

Mang Crisanto has been looking after Calumbuyan island for 16 years. He and his son are the only mainstays in an island frequented by tourists by day but mostly empty at night. The first time I went to Calumbuyan, I didn't see much besides a nice beach canopied by a row of trees which lined up along the shoreline.

When we visited the island last year, we just ate lunch at the beach. We didn't snorkel around the island. Upon returning to Manila, I googled the island and found out it has the best coral formations in the world. We were there and we didn't get to see it.

Corals near the Calumbuyan sea wall

Thank God, I was blessed with another opportunity to visit Calumbuyan again last weekend. We swam with the current this time as instructed by our very helpful guide, Gary (09184637524). Something that we didn't do last time.

these are colorful corals

And boy, they were the most amazing coral formations I've ever seen in my entire life. For a moment, I had to blink and remind myself that I was not watching the National Geographic Channel or Discovery. With all the multiple colors that I saw, it was difficult to believe it was real. There were several schools of fish. There were the small fast ones, which made me feel like I was watching a video in fast forward mode. There were bright colored ones which seem to glow in the dark. The corals seem to be talking to me particularly those brain-like ones and the cabbage corals. There were also huge table corals which remind me of a lazy Susan. The beauty of the sea is quite difficult to capture in words and picture.

The Calamian group of islands has a lot to offer but I would put Calumbuyan on the top of my places-to-visit in this part of town. I won't get tired of staring at the beatiful creatures of the sea. Now I wonder why Ariel would ever want to be part of our world when her world is like that. Maybe, we really get no satisfaction. Or we fail to appreciate what we really have. Or maybe Ariel wasn't living anywhere near Calumbuyan.