Seeker

by Rita Pomade

  Sometimes Bernard, Stefan and I explored the area together, and we always had a good time. The Filipinos were a friendly people with a gracious manner. Everywhere we went, the inhabitants made us feel welcome. I couldn’t pass a person on the road without being greeted by a warm smile. “Hi Joe,” they’d say. All westerners were “Joe,” a holdover from the Second World War. On weekends, we looked forward to seeing the transvestite who motored to shore on her bangka, probably coming from the nearby island of Luzon, to visit family or a lover. We never knew. No one asked. But we agreed she was quite beautiful.

  I fell in love with the Filipino people who were so welcoming, and dreamed of living among them in a bamboo house overlooking the sea. I saw myself picking mangoes in my back yard and setting them in a bowl on the terrace that faced out across the bay. A handful of westerners had built homes on the island. I could see one of those elegant homes from the deck of the Santa Rita and was told an Italian lived there by himself. I visualized visiting him and even thought about asking for the name of his workmen. Today, I don’t understand why I didn’t. He will never know how his house, just off the beach built into a hill of flowering trees and tropical brush, had enthralled me. Sometimes before I fall asleep, I imagine myself in one of his split bamboo rooms inhaling the sweet aroma of the freshly thatched roof while a night breeze plays about my face.

  We did get to visit one ex-pat home. A Frenchman in the gas business had built a house near the beach in another bay, and invited Bernard and me for lunch. Our visit was cut short when Bernard noticed angry waves building in the bay and felt a squall was on the way. We made a dash to the Santa Rita, but not before the gentleman handed Bernard a pair of long pants since the temperature had suddenly dropped — a soft cotton pair that Bernard still has. Thinking back, it’s hard to say if I wanted one of those homes because they were so aesthetically pleasing or because I was aware of how fraught with danger our adventure could become. I knew we would soon be leaving the island of Mindoro and sailing into more hostile territory.

  When we lifted anchor in Puerto Galera for the next leg of our adventure, I wasn’t ready to go. I wanted to explore more, but with a backpack by ferry, or in one of those bangkas that motored around the islands. You can’t rush experience, and I hoped to come back one day.

  Our plan was to make a brief stopover in Palawan, the last cluster of islands before leaving the Philippines, and then sail straight to Singapore. We didn’t want to spend time in the China Sea knowing that the further south we went, the closer we’d be to Mindanao, an island plagued with civil unrest and endless guerrilla warfare, as well as pirates reputed to pillage and kill. We had our sling shots from Father Brown but knew we’d never lob Molotov cocktails, and we hadn’t yet tested our strategy for pirate evasion. Bernard’s idea was to stay away from the Sulu Sea, an area that would trap us should we be chased, and keep along the western edge of the islands that gave on to the China Sea.

  A day and a half after leaving Puerto Galera a typhoon hit. It pummelled the bay and destroyed boats, driving them onto the shore where they broke apart or were badly damaged. We had by then sailed outside the typhoon zone. It was only when the threat no longer existed that I realised how tense I’d been. This penchant for denial in the throes of danger pulled me through many hair-raising experiences at sea. When we were sailing, I focused on what needed to be done, and didn’t sense my fear until the danger had passed.

  When we neared Busuanga, part of a small group of islands before Palawan, the sea flattened, and a disquieting stillness settled in. Night had fallen, so we decided to drop anchor among the islands and continue our sail at daybreak. About two o’clock in the morning, the wind picked up and carried with it what sounded like the earth moaning. The low, eerie wailing felt as if displaced souls were moving through the boat. I lay frozen in my berth, listening to the mournful cries.

  In the morning, we were startled to find ourselves on a dark sea surrounded by towering rock shapes, some several stories high. The sun had just risen over the horizon and cast a red glow over black, karst formations that rose from the seabed. The monumental structures, eroded by eons of sea waves washing over and through them, looked like enormous sculptures carved by giants. A number of these sculptural forms had holes carved through them and looked like work done by the sculptor Henry Moore. A slight wind blew through the holes. It explained the wild moans and wailing we’d heard in the night, as these awesome figures sang their heartbreaking songs. The unexpected other-worldly appearance of the landscape shocked and seduced us. We felt dwarfed by the size of the formations and awed by the energy they emitted.

  The Santa Rita drifted like a minuscule space ship among these majestic shapes, and I wondered if we had slipped through a portal to a parallel world. As the sun rose, the dark sea turned a brilliant emerald green, but the multitude of massive shapes rising up from the sea floor continued to convey a timeless dimension to the surroundings.

  Later I learned these formations, made of quartz-rich sandstone and limestone, sat on marble schist at the bottom of the sea, and were formed during the Permian Age about 300 million years ago. That was long before the coming of the dinosaur, and perhaps when we were only one-celled life forms. It made me think how late we were as arrivals on this planet.

  Bernard, Stefan and I motored through this mystical plane of other worldly delight until we came upon an azure-coloured, crystalline lagoon whose seabed must have been an underwater mountain. The sea surrounding the lagoon was so deep that our anchor had nowhere to grab, but the floor of the lagoon couldn’t have been more than two or three feet deep. Within its borders, swam tiny tropical fish in every imaginable colour or combination of colours. Some were shaped like tiny triangles, others like empty tubes, and still others like the small square boxes I’d seen in Puerto Galera. Some sported dots, others were striped, making me think of tiny circus performers scurrying about before the start of the show.

  The water was calm, so we were able to turn the yacht to stop her from moving, and then we scrambled over the side to walk among the fish.

  “It feels like I’m walking inside a giant fish tank,” Stefan said.

  “I feel like I’m walking in space,” I answered. Wherever I looked there was nothing but sea, and here I was standing in the middle of it, in the middle of nowhere, as though I were standing on the water, which gave the sensation I was floating a small distance above.

  Bernard splashed around dispersing the fish and trying to see if he could catch a few in his hands — a futile task but fun for all of us.

  Towards evening we set sail for El Nido, a small village on the northwestern coast of the main island of Palawan. We passed immense cliffs, the lower part etched out by the sea, which made it possible to sail beneath the stone overhangs. As we neared El Nido, we saw niches in the cliff walls, that told us some kind of bird must make its home here. When we entered the town, we were greeted by Fernando, a small businessman with bungalows for rent on the beach. He spoke English and took an interest in telling us about his village. We asked him about the niches.

  He explained to us that a small swallow-like bird called a Swiftlet makes its nest there, and that it was because of the birds that the town got its name, which means The Nest in Spanish.

  “We gather the nests,” he said, “for export to Hong Kong. They’re sold there for bird’s nest soup. Collecting them is dangerous, but the high price that the Chinese pay makes it worth the risk. If you take me on your yacht, I will show you where and how the nests are gathered.”

  We knew he wanted to visit the Santa Rita, and we were just as anxious to see where the nest gatherers worked.

  “It’s a deal,” Bernard said.

  “Can I steer?”

  Bernard handed Fernando the helm, and our small party, including one of Fernando’s friends, set out for cliffs. We travelled a short distance, and then took the dinghy to shore where, during the gathering season, men scaled these sheer, limestone cliffs to gather the nests. Tw
o hundred feet in the air, rope ladders hung limp with only thin bamboo scaffolding underneath. That was all there was to keep the workers from falling to their deaths. I was happy we were there out of season and didn’t have to watch the process. Bird nests at the time brought $3,000 a kilo in Hong Kong, and in a poor country, I could understand the incentive — though it was hard for me to believe anyone would pay that much for a package of bird spit.

  I was overwhelmed by the loftiness of the cliffs. Along with the karst formations we sailed through near Busuanga, the whole region called to mind graveyard stones scattered about a timeless cathedral — nature’s own cathedral carved from the planet’s bones and left behind before man ever arrived, a reminder of our ever-changing, neverchanging universe, here long before we came and here long after we’ll be gone.

  We stumbled into this part of the world in 1982, and benefited from its lack of a tourist market. Today high-speed bangkas zip through prescribed routes to show off the region’s unique landscape, followed by daily scuba diving, beach barbecues, socializing and shopping. There’s no down time to take in the timelessness of the landscape because that would take time.

  Photos of the area fall flat. The camera can’t capture the grandeur of the space; nor the feeling of being suspended in time because of the region’s mating of stone and water in such a way that it evokes the sacred where life is ceaseless and death, an illusion. The area awakened in me the spiritual, and that has to be experienced, not viewed through a lens.

  Our next port of call was Ulugan Bay situated about a third of the way down the west coast of Palawan Island. Within the bay was a narrow island about a mile and a half long called Rita. Bernard found it while studying one of the sea charts.

  “What do think about visiting?” he asked Stefan and me.

  “Sure,” Stefan said because he was always open to a new adventure.

  “Absolutely,” I said because I was impressed that there was an island carrying my name.

  Before we had even anchored, the inhabitants of Rita Island were lined up on shore to greet us. Rita was too small to be of interest to passing yachts, and there was no tourism, so visitors were a rare occurrence and an occasion for celebration. The local people plied us with food from their meagre stores but refused payment. They felt honoured to have guests, and we felt as honoured to be treated like visiting dignitaries. We left the island in high spirits, and dropped anchor near a mangrove-dense inlet in the bay that opened into a river.

  “Let’s take the dinghy up that river in the morning,” Bernard proposed.

  “Great idea,” I said. Stefan and I exchanged pleased looks.

  Bernard was back.

  I wondered at the return of Bernard’s adventurous spirit. This was the man I used to know. He’d come alive when we were sailing. But if we anchored somewhere for more than a day or two, he’d lose interest in the outside world and focus all his energy on the yacht, or on new drinking buddies if another yacht happened to be nearby. He’d barely talk to Stefan or me, and seemed not to notice if we were even there. I hadn’t yet associated alcohol with his shifts in behaviour. Every time he showed enthusiasm for our adventure, I believed he’d finally come out of his shell, and we’d be connected as we had once been.

  The next morning, after we’d had our cups of coffee and some jam with a few slices of pan fried toast, I threw a box of shrimp crackers, a bunch of bananas and a big plastic bottle of water into a bag. I was ready to go. Bernard grabbed his camera, and the three of us jumped into the dinghy for our trip up the estuary and into the jungle.

  The river was about twenty feet across, but so many mangrove trees crowded the banks that the massive tangle of roots snaked out into the water, leaving about six feet or less on each side of the dinghy. Behind the mangroves, the vegetation was dense, luminous green in places where the sun penetrated and dark, emerald green where the higher mountain area was exposed to the sun. Near us, the surrounding area was greyed by shadowed light filtering through trees.

  Bamboo houses on stilts dotted the banks. Each house was anchored in water and had a small boat tied to it. The structures weren’t close together. Mangrove and banyan trees separated one from the other. These were the homes of the Tagbanua people, indigenous to the area, and fishing families for the most part, who traded fish for produce or rice grown farther inland. The people smiled at us as we passed or watched us with mild curiosity. There was no feeling that we had invaded their private domain, though in fact, we had.

  Strung along the banks, taking up whatever space the jungle left, were families of monkeys that had come to the river edge to feast. They sat stoically and stared at us as we passed, and we stared back just as intrigued. Some trees held hornbill families — white tailed black birds with large, bizarre-shaped beaks — that squawked raucously. There was a flock of blue and green coloured parrots that took flight overhead, also with unmelodious voices.

  Stefan’s eyes were everywhere, and I knew he was taking in the scene in his typical laid-back fashion. I wondered if he’d remember this trip in years to come, and how it would affect his perception of life. Bernard had his camera out and was taking photos. He was totally engaged. I had no interest in taking photos. I didn’t want to separate myself from the experience. The magic of it and the accord between the three of us was something that I wanted to imprint in my brain and remember forever. I was looking for immersion. Bernard wanted a record. Today I appreciate his having taken the photos. Looking through them now gives a shape to the memories and triggers forgotten details that I thought I’d never forget. We followed the river until mangrove roots impeded our going farther and forced us to turn back.

  We’d have spent more time in Palawan, but guerrilla fighting between religious factions on Mindanao Island to the East and pirate activity in the direction we were heading prompted us to want to pass through the area as quickly as possible. We had to sail through the Balabac Strait, once a part of the old spice and silk route, and pirating was a traditional way of life going back more than 1500 years. Fernando, the small business entrepreneur we had met in El Nido, warned us that pirates had knocked out the lights along the Balabac Strait. “The Coast Guard,” he said, “are afraid to repair them. And even if they did, they’d be knocked out again.”

  It was hard to say if this was the real reason the lights had not been repaired or whether the reason was that part of the Coast Guard may have been working with the pirates since locals slipped easily from being fishermen one day to pirates the next. The fact that pirates often played other roles in society was one of the reasons it was difficult to eradicate them.

  The Balabac Strait was an opening between islands that connected the China Sea to the Sulu Sea, so the pirates of Mindanao had easy passage from their island through the Balabac Strait into the China Sea. We were anxious to get past that area, naively thinking that, once we passed the Balabac Strait and made it to Borneo, our worry about pirates would be behind us.

  Chapter 14

  FROM BORNEO TO SINGAPORE

  Winter 1982

  If you reject food, ignore customs, fear the religion

  and avoid people, you might better stay at home.

  — JAMES MICHENER

  Relieved at having made it through the Balabac Strait in little more than two days without any pirate sightings, we relaxed into whatever adventures lay ahead. Our nearest landfall was Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah in the Malaysian sector of Borneo. Before looking it up in an atlas, we had no idea the island was divided into three countries — Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Sultanate of Brunei, squeezed between the other two.

  “I’ve heard of Kota Kinabalu,” I told Bernard, “but I didn’t know where it was. The name has a nice alliteration, and is probably why it got stuck in my mind.”

  Bernard, poring over a sea chart in search of some good anchorage, looked up. “It was called Jesselton when the British were there. Kota Kinabalu definitely sounds better.”

  “I’m going see if there’
s any poetry related to it.” I looked through some tourist information on Southeast Asia, but found no reference to poetry. However, I did discover what the name might mean. “Revered place of the dead,” I said. “There’s something poetic in that.”

  “Or maybe it’s a place we shouldn’t hang around too long.”

  I laughed at his response, but in fact, we didn’t stay long. Aside from some dense mangrove forests, many of which we’d already seen in Palawan, and jungle trekking that would mean leaving the Santa Rita unattended, there wasn’t enough there to hold our interest. After a good night’s sleep, we lifted anchor and sailed down to Labuan, a small island about eight miles off the Borneo coast. The idea was to have some quiet time before tackling a new country and a new culture. We pictured Borneo as an exotic mix of landscapes and people, and we wanted to relax a bit before taking it in.

  About two o’clock in the morning, we awoke to Stefan’s shouts. Bernard sprang off the berth and ran to the salon. In the split second that it took him to get there, Stefan was already out the hatch and on deck. Bernard darted up the steps after him.

  “I was asleep,” Stefan told him, “but left my cabin door open so I could get some fresh air. And then I heard some rustling. I came out as soon as I heard the noise and saw this guy take off through the hatch. I was right behind him. But when I got on deck, there was no one there.”

  Bernard turned on our searchlight to see if there was a boat nearby, but nothing was out there. The water was dead black and unruffled. I had a creepy feeling that the person might still be aboard. We searched everywhere, but the intruder had vanished like an act in a magic show. I questioned whether he might have swum under the yacht and would reappear when we were sleeping.