The land of amazing sunsets, & sharks

PART ONE: TUBBATAHA ABOVE WATER

“I think I see Purple there is that a Purple?” Asks my brother Guy as we both stare at must be of the most staggering sunsets, ever. “Neah, I think it’s Violet,” I think to myself. Gosh, the sunsets in this land contain almost all shades and colors – from deep Red Scarlet to Bright Cyan. Though the term “land” could be a bit of an overstatement as no part of this tiny sandy atoll is over 0.5 meters high. 

Tubbata-what?!

Tubbataha Reef is low lying reef smack in the middle of the Sulu Sea. Where exactly is Sulu sea? We’ll get to that later. Suffice to say for now that the place – three coral atolls, lumped together – is a textbook definition of “in the middle of nowhere”. It is also a protected area, a title it acquired due to the very high density of marine species around it and also for being the nesting grounds for both sea birds and marine turtles.

How important is Tubbataha? In 1999 Ramsar listed Tubbataha as one of the Wetlands of International Importance. In 2008, the reef was nominated at the New 7 Wonders of Nature(but lost, along the Dead Sea, to the Palawan’s  Underground River). Still, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which gotta count for something.

Getting there is part of the fun (not)

“What? are you alone?”, says the taxi dispatcher at the Manila airport, “no Philippine girlfriend?”, and then with a sleigh smile continued “I can arrange you a nice girlfriend for the night”. I say “thanks, that won’t be necessary” and add: “I have a girlfriend at home, no need for a local”. The man seems both impressed and disappointed at the same time.

A lot of adjectives can describe Manila – The Philippines’ capital city and home to 13 Million Pilipinos. Beautiful, organized, quiet, and tidy aren’t likely to be on anyone’s list, though. It took me 18 hours to get here – including two flights and a 3 hours connection – and I’m only halfway.

Climbing inside a licensed, yet over-priced cab, we crawl our way through the endless congestion to my overnight hotel. I’ll be back at the airport the following morning to catch a 2hr flight to Puerto Princesa, in the Palawan archipelago, where I will board a diving-safari vessel, and sail 10 hrs east to an invisible point in the middle of the sea. Yeah, this place isn’t really what someone would call “accessible” – and all for the better. The fewer divers around it, the more Tubbataha you get to yourself.

Stuck in the middle

You’d think no-one would live on those few barren sandy patches – the highest protruding no more than 50cm (1.5 feet) above the waves. You’d be wrong. A small enclave of Pilipino rangers and their patrol boat call this isolated place home. Nestled on top of two-meter-high planks, with no refrigeration, no air-condition, and only a tiny sliver of solar-produced electricity, their existence is only a notch above tropical ship-wreck survivors. Unlike ship-wreck survivors, however, they are not allowed to fish. While the logic of not allowing rangers to break the laws of their own reserve makes perfect sense, in practice, living on canned food, with such an abundance all around, seems a bit harsh.  Once every two months, though, they do get replaced by another team of convicts… errr… sorry, I meant rangers, and so on.

Never-the-less, these poor rangers have something no prison has – the world’s most beautiful sunsets. Seriously, I’ve seen nothing like it. Call it artistic, psychedelic, inspiring, or dazzling. Whatever word you choose, they could hardly match the sight above Tubbataha blood-red skies.