THE PHILIPPINES — Original Cloud 9
John Seaton Callahan
I made a trip to The Philippines with Taylor Knox and Evan Slater in the typhoon season of 1992, early September. We didn’t know very much about where we were going or what we might find there, but we knew the east coast of The Philippines got seasonal swell from Western Pacific typhoons so we decided to go to an island called Siargao to have a look.
After arriving first in Manila, then Cebu City and then; Surigao City, we realised we still had to get to Siargao Island. We asked at the hotel we stayed at and they said we could wait until the public boat in the afternoon or we could go to the harbour and charter a boat ourselves. We got in a taxi and went to the harbour. In an hour or so we had booked and paid a cash deposit on a boat to Siargao and returned to the hotel to check out and get our stuff.
After a scenic six-hour journey to Siargao via the Hinatuan Passage, we stopped at Dapa and continued on to General Luna, further up the coast where we would get more exposure to the northeast groundswell in the Pacific ocean from passing offshore typhoons.
