SAMAR SALINITY
Capitalizing on Typhoon Season in the Philippines

Grab an umbrella. A typhoon is what makes or breaks your trip to the Philippines.

Surfing is enjoying a rise in popularity in the Philippines, with many locals taking up the sport and a growing number of visiting surfers from Japan, Australia, the US and Europe visiting every year. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo herself has been photographed surfing at both Siargao and in La Union, with the photographs widely published worldwide as the “Surfing President”. While far behind other Asian countries like Japan and Indonesia (Bali) for the number of outstanding local surfing talents, and in contest organization and prize money, the Philippines is catching up with Quiksilver, Billabong, and Rip Curl opening retail outlets and taking an interest in sponsorship of promising Pinoy and Pinay talent. These companies are also promoting the sport and their products via contests like the Siargao Cup, sponsored this year by the Billabong group, via their Australian operation.

Calicoan is also home to one of the Philippine Surfing Federation national circuit events, and the reef breaks near The Surf Camp can produce good quality waves. There are no waves with the screaming barrels of Cloud 9, which are for advanced surfers only. Calicoan’s waves also break over a coral reef, but are closer to shore and more user-friendly than Siargao. The Rocky Point style mixed lefts and rights are popular with local children and good for shortboarding, and longboarding when it’s small. Several good surfers from Borongan like locals Abdel and Floyd have taken up residence in the area, and are making a good business as surf guides for visiting Japanese, Australian and other foreign surfers not familiar with the local waves and conditions.

The nearby islands of Suluan and Homonhon also have waves, and are seldom surfed by anyone, as they require a boat for access. Homonhon has several good reef breaks, and Suluan is the location to the infamous Jurassic Point. Perhaps the largest rideable wave in the Philippines, Jurassics is a huge fearsome beast of a wave that breaks with all the power of the North Pacific Ocean on the edge of the 3000 meter deep Philippine Trench just offshore, and is an experts-only location.

This wave was discovered and named on a boat charter trip I produced about ten years ago, and has been something of a secret spot despite being featured on the cover of at least ten international surfing publications, including magazines in the US, Australia, UK, France, and Hong Kong, and the Surfrider Foundation 2007 calendar. Suluan has a perfect bay for yacht anchorage on the opposite side of Jurassics, and the friendly village of Granadas is behind the gorgeous white sand beach. This picturesque bay is also rumored to have been visited by Magellan nearly five hundred years ago, the logbooks say they soon proceeded to nearby Homonhon to find fresh water.

Further up the coast road from Guiuan in the direction of General MacArthur are more high-quality waves, although some degree of local knowledge or a surf guide is necessary to find them as many are not visible from the road. There are no local surfers in this area, and overnight accommodations are few and far between, as we learned on several forays from Calicoan into this new territory for surfers.

On our last day, we got up early and made the drive north, in anticipation of good waves at a spot we first found on a boat charter trip in 1996. We made the turnoff from the main road, went through the bushes for a few minutes, and parked as close as we could get to the beach. Unpacking our boards and camera gear, we could see the waves on the point: big, perfect, and empty. We walked up the beach to the cave, and prepared to surf all day in Mentawai-quality conditions. No one would have surfed here at all that day, if we had not. “Siargao was then, Samar is now, indeed,” I thought.