Travel Dispatch: The Forgotten Island
On a boat on our way to a small island off Camarines Norte in the Philippines, my friend Sam gave me a warning:
“Don’t take any pictures that might give our location away.”
We held on to the rails of the boat as the captain revved the engine and angled the vessel to break through the waves ahead of us.
There was tension in the air, but we all did our best to look calm behind our sea-sprayed sunglasses. We could finally see the shore, but the long white caps we came for were still on the other side of the island—too dangerous to be accessed by boat.
“It’s probably overhead right now,” Ingkit, one of my friends mused. We were too far away to tell if the waves were really that big, but seeing the big smile on his face somehow made it all feel inconsequential. We were there to have fun.
As the boat got closer to the shore, we could see a few abandoned cottages surrounding a crumbling mass of concrete. One of the locals said the place used to be a resort and was destroyed by a big typhoon back in the 90’s. Vines covered the mangled structures, and the pillars still left standing looked like gigantic broken teeth — jaundiced and decaying in neglect.
When our party finally reached the island, we promptly unloaded the surfboards, bags, and other provisions and followed a narrow trail guiding us to Jaimie Richardson’s house: a half-finished hut made of thatched palm leaves and bamboo—unassuming—just like the rest of the houses in the barrio.
What made Jaimie’s hut look a bit anachronistic, however, was the solar panel mast sticking out of the roof. Other houses simply didn’t have such luxury at their disposal, relying instead on a single industrial generator that provided the entire neighborhood electricity for only a few hours at night.
Known to his friends by his initials JR, Jaimie came to reside in the Philippines from Australia to recuperate from a bad car accident that inflicted a serious blow to his head a few years ago. JR chose to build a house on the island for some quiet time with his wife and to surf the waves of the island. Being Filipino-Australian, JR was only as tall as most Filipinos (around 5'5'’), but had pale skin and Caucasian facial features, earning him the title mestizo from the locals.
When everything was finally unloaded and unpacked, we all took the opportunity to take a rest and we deemed drinking beer was a great way to do it. JR told his help in slurred Bikol to buy beer and gave the kid some money. Despite his thick Australian accent and slow speech, he was very fluent in the local language.
When night fell, our group, made up of about ten surfers and skimboarders. JR’s wife, and my friend Stephanie who took the trip with me from Florida also tagged along. We shared drinks, food and stories under the single light bulb hanging inside JR’s house.
Outside the hut, the darkness felt quite unfamiliar. We heard a cacophony of noises from various critters, but we didn’t get a glimpse of any of them. The full moon hung low behind the silhouettes of the palm trees, and everyone would stop exchanging stories every once in a while just to stare at the celestial magic unfolding in front of them.
“The waves are going to be good tomorrow,” Sam announced while his face bathed in the moon’s cerulean glow. Like some Filipino surfers, he held certain superstitions and one of those is that full moon brings good waves. I crossed my fingers and hoped that his hunch was correct.
Sam had long traded his dreadlocks for a more office-friendly haircut, but he still looked like some proud savage well-suited for the island life. He wore a a necklace with sea shells, and the short sleeves of his sweat-drenched blue collared shirt could only hide so much of the tribal tattoos on his body.
He was an excellent modern-day hunter, too — and the point breaks on the other side of the island were his prize catch. He was one of the few surfers lucky enough to have discovered the beautiful point breaks of the island.
He had been talking about long, perfectly sculpted lefts of the island for days, and at the break of dawn, we would finally have the opportunity to experience riding them firsthand.
Everyone dreamed about the secret spot that night. Even the few locals who had been there before thought about surfing it incessantly in between sips of beer. The surf spot was very special for many of us; not a lot of people have seen it, let alone ride it—and that felt like a great privilege.
The next morning, our group packed up our bags and fell in line like a small army of ants following a strange, enticing scent. It was about 9 in the morning. It was finally time to get to the secret spot, but it was not going to be that easy. The journey required a grueling trek through the jungle, and every person brought along at least 2 litres of water because extreme thirst in the hot tropical climate was inevitable.
The residents of the island curiously watched as our group marched through their neighborhood straight into the woods.
Waiting near the entrance of the jungle, a couple of farmers rationed their freshly picked santol (a type of fruit common in Southeast Asia) to every single one of us—a rare act of generosity that only the people in the barrio are still accustomed to.
We then moved on.
Sam played some reggae on his phone. Loud syncopated rhythms echoed along with the wild calls of the forest while our ears twitched in search of a different kind of sound: crashing waves.
We didn’t hear anything at all as we progressed deeper and deeper into the woods. Some of us thought the sound of the ocean had dissipated in the thick vegetation, while I personally thought our exhaustion was beginning to play with our senses.
The trail eventually opened up to a small cove. There were a couple of trees that perfectly framed the ocean with their delicate branches—welcoming us as if they were some primeval gates to paradise.
The sand was powdery white and the water was so clear, one could see the corals, and possibly any predators, lurking beneath. We did not anticipate to witness anything of such beauty at all.
One thing missing, however, was something that we had expected to be there all along: Waves.
“We’ll take a rest here for a while,” Sam announced as the rest of the group huddled around him. “We’ll wait for the low tide and go to the other spot. We should score a few waves there,” he told us reassuringly.
None of what Sam said was enough to assuage the exhaustion and disappointment everyone was feeling, but the sheer beauty of the cove gave us an inexplicable sense of contentment.
The cove’s real charm was its seclusion. The place was uninhabited, except for a small family living in a tiny shack on a hill overlooking the cove. The family took in our group without any hesitation. They knew Sam and JR and agreed to let us use their kitchen for lunch.
Our group ate sardines, ramen and rice laid out on huge banana leaves. There were no restaurants offering overpriced meals; no locals bugging anyone for surf lessons or surfboard rentals; no hotels offering the best vistas — just a bunch of friends eating home-cooked meals and enjoying the unadulterated scenery.
Sam confessed that he wanted to develop the island as a tourist spot. It was a different kind of paradise, and he could see its real potential as a wonderful place for surfers and vacationers. He looked at the small hut and said that he wanted to give the family that lived there a more stable income as well — and it was going to be through tourism instead of just fishing.
When the tide receded, our group packed up again and traversed the side of the island which was littered with sharp corals and big boulders. The trail was slimy and dangerous, we simply couldn’t afford to slip with all the bags and surfboards we carried.
Once we got to the other side of the beach, we encountered beautiful lush palm trees lining the shore that could very well belong in a postcard. The long stretch of soft, pristine white sand sparkled under the sun as we looked for a shade we could sit under. There was not a single house in sight and the place was all ours to enjoy.
On the horizon were the long lefts that Ingkit saw on the boat the previous day. We were still too far out to really judge the size of the waves, but we didn’t waste any time surveying the break. There were a few locals present on the beach, gathering shells to feed their family and sell at the fish market, oblivious to the beautiful waves breaking in front of them.
Our group staggered on the corals as we headed toward the break. JR’s dog tailed us as we made our way to the waves, but the dog waited for his master in the shallows instead when it realized the crashing waves were too violent for its liking.
The waves were around 4 feet high and sectiony—-a far cry from Ingkit’s initial assessment. The wind was offshore, but was quite strong that day that every wipe out sent everyone’s boards spinning in the air. None of us seemed to mind any of it, however.
Everyone knew how good the waves there could get. Some of the locals have had firsthand experience of its fast and hollow tubes on their previous visits, and they felt blessed enough just to be there once more. The island held a great level of sanctitude for them.
Sam showed me a few old video clips of some of our friends riding overhead waves reminiscent of the Uluwatu lefts [but of slightly smaller scale] that Jerry Lopez and Rory Russell rode in the 70s. Despite my slight disappointment with the current conditions and the fact that I didn’t get to witness or even ride such perfect waves that day, I began to see the place’s real potential as a world-class surf destination.
I could see all the excitement in Sam’s eyes. I knew that in that moment, he was imagining what the place could become. He told me he wanted to build a boardwalk there—just like in Siargao—so surfers could easily access the waves without walking on sharp corals.
Sam looked on as Ingkit caught a wave. He made a swift bottom turn and went for the lip with confidence. The huge spray of sea water made a rainbow, and Ingkit raised his fists in the air in exaltation for executing a perfect off-the-lip. It didn’t matter if the waves weren’t that big. He was just glad that that day, he had them all for himself.
Sam had been asking people for quite some time to invest on the island, but so far, no one seemed to show enough enthusiasm. Sam envisioned the island as the next best surf destination, but for that day, the waves of the island were still all for ourselves.
The island was never a secret in the first place, it was merely forgotten. Maybe someday it will all change — for better or for worse. Then, I was reminded of the ruins we saw on the island
