Daily Report: A Day On Agutayan Island

Last Sunday, Epril and I were joined by Mike and Emelyn Bird, and Mike and Marissa Turner (along with family) for a boat trip out to Agutayan Island. It was a pretty good trip although there were a few problems: As you can see in this first picture, there was a big storm off in the distance. Although it never did come close to the island, being on a treeless sand bar the size of a football field out in the middle of the ocean makes you acutely aware of the weather.
The second problem was that there was a roofed pavilion built up on stilts upon which we had planned to spend our time, but as you can see it had been destroyed recently by a storm (making the distant storm all the more ominous). Click here to see what the pavilion looked like before the storm.

So we had to settle for a makeshift shelter on the sand. With a stiff and constant breeze, it wasn't that steady a shelter... but we crouched inside and ate and drank in between swimming and snorkling. I had brought along all the ingredients for a big pile of Nachos Supreme as well as pineapple juice, rum, and coconut milk for piña coladas, Mike and Marissa brought along a cooler full of beer and Gatorade, and Bird and Emelyn brought the Filipino food.

Ah... problem number three: Here I am (in the red shirt) about to experience bad luck. I put my digital camera and mobile phone in my shirt pocket so that when I jumped out of the boat, they wouldn't get wet. Somehow, as I hopped down out of the boat, about 5 seconds after this photo was taken — with my hand actually over my shirt pocket holding the camera and phone — the camera squirted out of my grasp and landed in the water.

Photo of me pondering the power of Murphy's Law. That's the second digital camera I've gotten wet in as many years. Maybe I'll look into one of those waterproof ones now. It wasn't a particularly expensive camera (the first camera last year was, and I learned my lesson), but I loathe buying another camera yet again.

Anyway, Mike Turner had two cameras with him, including an underwater camera. We did some snorkeling... although not adventuring too far as none of us were real snorkel enthusiasts, and the reef on which Agutayan Island sits is about 1 kilometer long by 300 meters wide... too far for us to swim to get to the real exciting parts. But there were lots of starfish and colorful tropical fish and coral. Out at the reef's edge, there are incredible clam beds and a full-blown coral reef. Click here to see some photos of scuba diving on Agutayan Island.

The island is located about 5 kilometers off the coast of Mindanao, directly west of the town of Jasaan, about 45 minutes northeast of Cagayan De Oro. (Click here to see the island on Wikimapia. Only the white sandy part is above water.) You can hire a boat to take a dozen people out to the island and back for 800 pesos... $20. The boat (as you can see above) is a little small, but it's a wooden/bamboo combination, and it would require a trip through a wood chipper before it would sink.

Dimple and I enjoying the warm tropical water.

Epril (trying to avoid getting a tan) and Marissa Turner.

Anyway, in the late afternoon, it was back to the mainland, and then to Mike Bird's Bamboo Castle where we sat around and finished off the rest of the cooler's contents.

(Thanks for the pictures, Mike.)