Well, ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration; let’s just say I used to spend my weekends and vacations there. And what wonderful weekends they were!
Those memorable hours included swimming in the clear waters of Hawaii, spearfishing in Baja, drift diving in Cozumel, and cave diving in Cayman. Some of them were also spent navigating the underwater caverns of Akumal, the sand falls of Cabo, the luscious kelp beds and shipwrecks of Southern California, and the fiery soft corals of Fiji.
Once I spent several days exploring Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. And another time I actually spent the night in an underwater hotel off Florida’s Key Largo accessible only with scuba.
The irony is that by the time I got to the Philippines—recently named one of the world’s top diving destinations—I was all dived out. Or so I thought.
But then my adult daughter, Adina, reminded me of something I’d promised her as a child. “Dad,” she during a visit to Mindanao, “you always told me someday you’d take me diving. Let’s do it now!”
And so we did.
As it happened, a friend named Jake Miranda—a retired Philippine Navy diver—ran a dive center in Surigao City at a place called Punta Bilar. Because Adina had never been diving and I hadn’t been diving in years, he gave us both an introductory lesson. Then, using rented scuba gear, we dipped into the tropical waters of Surigao Strait.
The familiar feeling of weightless wonder enveloped me like a winsome wave. Everywhere the coral called, and the fluttering fish beckoned from a place called House Reef. It was as beautiful as anything I’d ever seen.
For a while we just drifted over the sand, enjoying the wonders which, though I hadn’t seen them in a long time, still felt embedded in my bones and soul like a hidden dream that comes to comfort you in the night. Along with the dream came a strong current pushing gently against our skin.
Jake had warned us of it. “Just go with the flow,” he’d said. “Don’t fight it, just relax and let it take you where it will.”
And so, we did. The water moved us as if in flight, whisking the shimmering scenery of the ocean floor past us far below. Suddenly we were moving quickly. And then we weren’t, as Jake slowly led us ashore.
And that’s when something prophetic happened that I wouldn’t recognize until years later; the place we landed was almost the exact spot whereupon I now live in the house we built on the shore.
Now for the good news: Last year, it seems, visiting divers poured some 73 billion pesos into the Philippine economy. “As one of the most mega biodiverse countries in the world, we are home to more than 500 species of corals and 2,000 species of fish,” Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco said at the opening ceremonies of the Philippine International Dive Expo in Manila earlier this year. “That distinction,” she continued, “is something we take to heart with a firm commitment of ensuring not just the marketability but, more importantly, the sustainability of our dive industry.”
Then, two months later in Singapore, the Asia Dive Expo—the region’s oldest and largest—named the Philippines the Sustainable Dive Destination of the Year. “This recognition…underscores our steadfast commitment to sustainable tourism practices,” declared the Tourism Promotion Board’s chief operating officer Maria Margarita Nograles. “Moving forward, we will continue to work hand in hand with local communities and dive operators…”
Back in Surigao City, I often sit on the veranda of my house these days gazing wistfully out over the reef of the same name. Jake Miranda’s dive center closed long ago, and the underwater gear I shipped here from California lies gathering dust in the basement.
My favorite fantasy? That one day, God willing, I shall glide again over the beautiful reef they call House.
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David Haldane is an award-winning American journalist, author, and broadcaster with homes in Southern California and Northern Mindanao. His latest book, A Tooth in My Popsicle, is available on Amazon. This column appears weekly in The Manila Times.
