Sta. Cruz Island and its renowned pink sand is one of the attractions in Zamboanga that I did not intend to miss. Little did I know that our supposedly short sail from the pier would lead us somewhere serene yet somewhat scary.
Invitingly bluish-green waters at the entrance
Entering the lagoon
Mangroves ahead
…there…
…and everywhere!
Kuya Richard March, our guide, informed us that this lagoon is a new project that the tourism office had been taking care of since May this year. If my memory serves me right, this area sprawls up to 3,000 meters. As you can see in the earlier photo, the water is quite low when we made our entrance around 9am and it could go even lower in the succeeding hours. Hence, we need to leave before that happens. Otherwise the boat will have a difficult exit and our party of five would have to remove our life jackets and push the boat with all strength that we could muster.
But try saying that to this camwhore any tourist who’d like to take home some cute reminder about the place they visited.
Turista moment with the mangroves at the background
Then this placid landscape transformed into something quite terrifying. The bats (yes, these nocturnal residents are actually in deep sleep in the open) probably found me too madahldahl and decided to do something about it. I was gripped with tension. How do bats normally express “Kung ayaw nyo matulog, magpatulog kayo!” in action? Do they swarm and crowd around the noise maker/s?
The batcave!
Uh oh!
Closer: they should look like bats by now
Are they closing in? Are they closing in? ARE THEY CLOSING IN?
Turned out my mind was just being too imaginative. There was no need for our boatsman to dash and paddle away on our way out. The throngs of awakened bats simply flew away and did us visitors no harm. They understood that our adventure had just began. Phew!
Photos from Phyllis Miram and Abby Mayuga.
Traveling Dahl 