Santuario de Taklobo

 

Essay 5. SANTUARIO DE TAKLOBO

By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol

Boston Gallery's Andy Estella must have read the essay I wrote about my group's sea outing to Capones Island. I have expressed there my extreme enthusiasm for the sea around the island and the marine creatures inhabiting it.

Sensing our passion for snorkeling, Andy did us a favor and mentioned to me a superior snorkeling site in Masinloc Bay, Zambales. Andy said that the place is rich not only in corals and reef fishes, but also in giant clams, or taklobo---it being a giant clam sanctuary.

When I relayed this information to my compadre and former UE Fine Arts classmate, Bert Falsis, he immediately scheduled a trip to Masinloc. It was May 2010. Bert took only three with him, since it was just a reconnaissance trip: his son John, John's former classmate, and myself. 

The boats that took passengers to and from San Salvador Island, which the locals called Pulo, are moored at the dock just beside the market. Bert rented a boat that can accommodate more than ten persons for 600 pesos. The trip to the clam sanctuary, which is just off San Salvador Island, took less that ten minutes.  

After notifying and getting permission from the caretakers of the sanctuary staying on San Salvador Island, our boat went back and dropped anchor at a place where the boatman thought the clams are. The place indeed, is rich in corals of all types. There are tabletop corals, staghorn corals, star corals, and brain corals, among others. There are also schools of different reef fishes cruising back and forth. 

But no giant clams. We have anchored at the wrong place. Cautious snorkelers that we were, we dared not venture very far from the boat to search for the clams. I think the farthest I snorkeled from and around the boat was about fifty meters only. It was near noontime when we gave up our search. We were hungry. 

There is in the middle of the sea, near the island, a big cottage on stilts built by Masinloc Mayor Fidel Edora. Excursionists can use it for free the boatman told us. That cottage looks interesting from afar, nicely designed and constructed, and is equivalent to a three storey structure if standing on land. We decided to eat our lunch there. So, we instructed the boatman to steer the boat toward the cottage.

Although we didn't see any giant clam, I'd say that we'd had a worthwhile trip. The corals and the colorful fishes alone, and the cottage on stilts in the middle of the sea certainly deserve a revisit.

 

Added bonus of our trip was my being able to take home a bunch of ripe Pulo mangos, which were bruited about by the Masinloc locals as the sweetest mangoes in the whole of Zambales. I don't know what another compadre, a former classmate from UST Fine Arts, Jun Diaz, would say to that. Jun hails from Sta. Cruz, the northernmost town of Zambales.  I know that Jun is very proud of and sure of the unrivaled sweetness of their mangos. He might not readily concede to the claims of other towns of Zambales that their mangos are the sweetest. I've tasted Pulo mangos and the mangos from Sta. Cruz, but I won't dare hazard an opinion on which of the two is sweeter. Both of them tasted similarly sweet to me. 

Which brings to mind an incident during a later trip from Zambales on our way home to Manila. When our car passed the highway in San Antonio, we saw several stalls of mango vendors. Our group bought several kilos of "manibalang" or nearly-riped mangos which we divided among us when we arrived in Manila  We had high expectations because the mangos we bought are Zambales mangos after all. But to our disappointment and regret, the mangos, even when fully riped, still tasted sour. We've been had. A friend explained that the mangos were either "kinalburo lang" - or, not really from Zambales, but just "imported" from any of the nearby provinces. 

It would be great if I'll have on my table one day one or two mangos each from Guimaras, Zambales, Cebu, and other provinces for tasting. Only in that way could I judge with some semblance of accuracy which province produces the sweetest mango.