Raising Boys

Sea sojourn April 9, 2007

Somewhere between one island and the next, I got stung by a jellyfish. I felt something like a thread wrap itself around my left leg like an anklet before a confusing mix of pain and itchiness hit me. It was a horrible sensation.

I hobbled to the motorized outrigger boat that we rented for our island-hopping adventure off the seas of Mactan in Cebu, and one of the boatmen suggested that I put ice on it. It worked and, thankfully, no one else got stung.

The boat was anchored a few meters away from Sulpa, an island so small you can go around it in less than 20 minutes.

I was on my way to the islet from the boat docked several meters away when the stinging happened; the children in our party were already brought there to swim and play in the shallows.

My 8-year-old son Dylan was wearing a flotation device and he preferred the deeper part. The strong current swept him away and my husband had to go after him and bring him back.

The shallow area around the islet stretch for a kilometer and we had a wonderful time splashing and swimming in the clean and cool waters.

It seems hard to imagine that if you go far into the sea from Mactan’s shores, far enough that the water below you turns the deepest blue, you’d ran into shallow water surrounding a piece of rock with fine sand.

Before Sulpa, there was Tres Rosas (three roses) — a group of three islets the biggest of which was so small only 10 people could probably fit in it.

Then there were huts pretending to be islands. They were restaurants in the shallow part off Barangay Caw-oy and were called “floating restaurants.”

Sadly, they were a disappointment and a visit was probably only necessary to satisfy one’s curiosity. I could not imagine ever wanting to go back. The prices of the food so steep — 900 pesos for a kilo of the Lapu-Lapu fish — the whole thing seemed legalized robbery.

At the day’s end, while making our way back, the boat battled big waves they seemed to swallow us. We could not wait to go back to dry land and leave the sea and its mysteries behind.