There’s so much to do on Sumilon that offers opportunities for solitude where, according to Virginia Woolf, ‘we give passionate attention to our lives, to our memories, to the details around us.’
Photos by Francisco Dacuycuy
of the pool, the relics and ruins of nearby islands, and infinity beyond its coral coves
When the world is changing fast around you, you go where it hasn’t changed completely. It’s not to deny the fact that nothing ever is constant in this life—it’s only so you can anchor yourself to things that are meant to last a while before you lose yourself again to the ever-changing tides.
So I went to Sumilon.
A long, long time ago, which is to say before the pandemic, I took my nieces to Bluewater Sumilon. It was more practical to land at the Dumaguete Airport than at the Mactan-Cebu International Terminal. From Dumaguete, you will only have to take a short trip by car, multicab, or trike to Oslob, from which Sumilon is only a brief pumpboat ride away. This is why I didn’t realize until we planned our second escape to this paradisiacal island 125 kilometers from Cebu City that all these years they had unfairly attributed all their fond memories of Sumilon to the Negros Oriental capital.
Sumilon Island was made a fish sanctuary in 1974 under the guidance of Siliman University Marine Reserve. It was the first marine protected area in the Philippines. Home to varied marine species, it would allow even occasional sightings of black tip sharks. When I first visited Sumilon, a brief snorkeling expedition was an experience for the books. I swam right through a kaleidoscope of live, moving colors, sizes, and shapes. It was a sampling of the marine biodiversity, which continues to make Philippine waters richer by far than most other destinations in the world. There are coves of pristine white sand beaches around the island too, on which, like I did with my family on the shifting sandbar the last time we were in Sumilon, you can ask Bluewater Sumilon to set up a sunset dining experience.
The resort on this island is no place for the lone wolf. It’s designed for couples making memories, friends looking for fun, honeymooners, or families, but there’s so much to do on Sumilon that offers opportunities for solitude, the kind we can find even when we are with others, but only when they know us enough to let us have our silences and our distances, the kind where, according to Virginia Woolf, “we give passionate attention to our lives, to our memories, to the details around us.”
From plain lazing around, my favorite, to biking through the island’s forested trails, exploring the depths and darkness of caves, and climbing to the old lighthouse and the 19th-century watchtower, the Baluarte, the island is chockfull of activities in which, even in the company of others, you can steal time and space for yourself.
Try fishing and imagine it as the pursuit of the unknown, like philosophy, or as an exercise for matching outcome with expectation. On a kayak, get intimate with nature. Feel the water through the paddle or the thin, light frame of this type of canoe originally used by the Inuit, sense its energy, and be part of, instead of separate from it. There’s more—pedal boating, shark feeding, or swimming by the famous shifting sandbar.
Also perfect for lonely travelers is the resort’s glamping site. This whole section of the 24-hectare coral island off the southeastern tip of Cebu mainland is a secret cove, exclusive as it is to glampers. Once I had this entire stretch of beach all to myself when my nieces went on an island hopping adventure, and I was left for half a day, from breakfast to after lunch, with only the best thing to do—nothing. The tents, all five of them set up on the sand under the trees, were empty and so was my stretch of the beach, my portion of the island, my side of paradise. I had a book in hand, but I didn’t bother to read a page. There was WiFi, but I kept my phone off. I had SPF 50 but I didn’t want to waste precious seconds retrieving it from my travel bag in my tent and slapping it on my skin. I had Spotify, but I preferred to listen to the twittering of birds, the whispering breeze, the music of the waves crashing on the shore. I wanted each moment of the six hours I had to myself spent luxuriating in sky, sea, sand, and soul. What I’d give to have those six hours again on Sumilon!
I wanted each moment of the six hours I had to myself spent luxuriating in sky, sea, sand, and soul. What I’d give to have those six hours again on Sumilon!
But life these days won’t leave you alone. For some, maybe even for me, you can do away with your soul, but there’s no way you can do away with WiFi even in paradise. At least, there’s WiFi and, if activities, such as diving lessons or a snorkeling session, force you to go offline, there is always the option to return later.
Also, reminders of what has become of our life have invaded island life on Sumilon.
I’m not talking about creature comforts, such as the private dipping pools and lounging spaces overlooking the infinite blue of sky meeting sea in the three-secluded villas, the two one-bedroom honeymoon villas and the one two-bedroom family villa, each like the 29 premier or deluxe rooms seeped in modern Filipino aesthetics and fitted with home-away-from-home luxuries, including spacious bathrooms the size of an entire hotel room in other beach haunts.
What I’m talking about is reminders of the current state of affairs. The Sumilon Island Sandbar, for instance, is now off limits to tourists and vacationers every Wednesday, as ordered by the local government of Oslob, when it is subject every week to cleanup and rehabilitation to keep it in pristine condition. Unlike the rest of the island, the sandbar is not under the stewardship of Bluewater Island Resort.
On this second trip, I embarked once again on a snorkeling adventure, which started on the sandbar, just before it vanished beneath the high tide. This time, however, I was made aware of the effects of supertyphoon Odette. There was still the spectacular dance of the fishes, but the shoals and schools, still dazzling in their synchronized turning and twisting, are no longer as dense and plentiful. Odette has wiped out much of the coral reefs, their feeding, spawning, and nursery grounds.
My dive guide, who left me mostly alone to commune with nature, in tune only with the sound of my breathing, told me, as I emerged from my sub-aquatic meditation, that mine was only the second group he had handled since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. In the two years that the reefs were left alone, he imagined them to have grown more lush, populated with more Piscean creatures, but as if the pandemic wasn’t enough, late last year Odette swept across the Visayas and Mindanao, and now the reefs will need more time to recover.
Despite these blows, which have also thrown many of us off course, Sumilon is still paradise. And there we can pretend that life isn’t changing so fast or at least not completely or at least not for the worse. The waves crash in on the shore, and you welcome them. If only you can say the same of the changes sweeping you off your feet. With hope, you can land on the sand—or something like sand elsewhere in life—with a soft thud.