Sulu-an was a spectacular landfall. We didn’t know how monumental it would feel to arrive in Asia, on the other side of the Pacific Ocean from Seattle. What a distance we’ve come! For some reason it now strikes me as a major accomplishment. We haven’t felt this way since making landfall in the Marquesas. I didn’t know I would feel so—I’m not sure what the word is—proud, amazed, thankful. And I didn’t realize the Philippines would be so beautiful. From journal: “The water approaching Sulu-an is that ocean blue—deep sea blue—so clear and clean over sandy bottom, it creates a luminescence unmatched by any I’ve seen. Not the typical turquoise you see in postcards, but water that can’t decide if it’s ocean or lagoon, navy or turquoise—and so you get the best parts of both. And you can see the dark shapes of coral looming 100 feet below. Spectacular.” This is the first island we’ve been to since Samoa (over 3000 miles away) that hasn’t had a lagoon—though it has extensive reefs in areas, reefs that we would, unfortunately, become quite familiar with. Our electronic charts appeared, at first sight, to be a bit off, but as we aligned our dead reckoning, we saw that they were actually dead on.
As we approached the island, we could see a dozen outriggers dotting the sea, fishing. One buzzed us on his way to the southeast side of the island. From far away we could tell his rig was motorized since he was gaining on Dragonfly and we were motoring at five knots. Watching what looked like a traditional outrigger canoe screaming along like a race boat was quite a sight. When he got close, Graeme said, “Damn! That’s not an outboard he’s using, but a lawnmower engine.” Sure enough, we didn’t see a single outboard during our entire stay. When we were at anchor, every outrigger going in and out of the harbor buzzed us, wanting to check us out. We could hear them coming from miles away. The only thing louder than their lawnmower engines were their shrieks of laughter.
Sulu-an is a lush island with acres of palm tree plantations flanking its sides. The hills then rise up into dense green jungle. At its highest point sits a white lighthouse (replacing the old cement lighthouse) built by the Americans in 1955. The lighthouse keeper has retired and no one has taken its place, so it does no good at night. But during the day, it is quite visible. The beach on Sulu-an is golden—soft and abundant resort-quality sand. The only thing that might deter tourists are the filmy beds of seaweed, which the kids gather up in handfuls for seaweed fights in the shallows. Outrigger canoes crowd the beach; very few stretches of sand stand empty. They are distinct from Polynesian canoes in that they have outrigger platforms on both sides. From the water the canoes look like swarms of spiders crawling up the beach, with high arching legs and colorful bellies. They are kept in pristine condition, fresh paint—orange, baby blue, green, yellow—names painted proudly on the bow, homeport “Sulu-an” on the stern. Some have elaborate graphics. Walking through the village we saw many half-made canoes in people’s yards. One place was a kind of canoe factory with multiple workers and multiple projects underway, though it was under a striped tarp strung between palm trees in someone’s yard, so it didn’t exactly feel like a commercial boatyard.
The most exciting thing about coming to Sulu-an was meeting Leah and Iain, our friend Gordon’s wife and son. In fact, we came here specifically to see them, at Gordon’s recommendation and request. (Gordon is the Scottish bloke we met in Pohnpei. He is stuck there making boat repairs and hopes to return soon to his family.) When we arrived, a group of four teenagers paddled an outrigger out to swim and play in the water near our boat. We asked if they knew Leah and Iain Smith, and they said they did. In fact, everyone we asked said, “Of course!” It’s a small island after all, only about 2,000 inhabitants. One boat that came in after a day of fishing stopped by and chatted. When we asked if they knew Leah, one of them said, “She’s my sister.” This was Boboi, Leah’s second youngest brother (she has seven brothers and one sister), and he had the kind of smile that makes girls’ knees go weak. Turned out Leah had the same apple cheeks and bright smile, and we understood how Gordon fell for her on first sight. About an hour later Boboi brought Leah, Iain, and Leah’s youngest brother Daniel out to see us. “Are you Leah?” we yelled as the boat neared. “Yes!” she exclaimed. We were so excited. They came aboard and we sat in the cockpit and talked a mile a minute. We were all so glad to finally meet after hearing so much about each other. We were thrilled.
So the story of how Gordon and Leah met is a good one, if a bit long and convoluted. Gordon arrived at Sulu-an, planning to rest a couple days before carrying on his voyage. He was not the first single-hander to arrive at Sulu-an, however, and when he went ashore, a friendly woman approached him and asked if he would like to meet her daughter. This was Loling, who runs a little store on the main road (essentially the only road) near where people pull their dinghies up. (The term “store” might be a bit deceiving. Stores here are simply windows that open up to a small shed or room in one’s house. The walls are lined with shelves and customers point to what they want.) Anyway, Loling had a daughter named Jennifer who had married a Canadian single-hander named Lorne. This all happened before Gordon came to town. Jennifer and Lorne (who invited us to dinner the first night we arrived—more on them later) weren’t at Sulu-an at the time; they had taken the boat back to Canada for a few years (and got hit by a freighter on their crossing, but that’s another story). Anyway, Gordon, though he had no intention of dating let along marrying anyone, was keen on getting to know some people in the village, so he said Sure, I’ll meet you daughter. The next day Loling’s daughter shows up on Gordon’s boat for an afternoon chat. They sit around and talk and have a very nice time, except for the dang chaperone who was sent to keep an eye on them. See, problem is, Gordon can’t keep his eyes off the chaperone! This, of course, turns out to be Leah. And the rest is history.
Soon after we had arrived, we’d received a summons from the village captain, delivered to us by three boys paddling an outrigger. I was in the water scrubbing the hull when they arrived. I swam over to them and they handed me a letter in a plastic bag, which I carried over my head back to Dragonfly. Graeme was quite impressed with the letter—clear, concise, respectful, welcoming. It requested our presence at Eddie Reola’s home “between now and 1600H today.” Leah showed us her family’s home, we met her father, then she guided us down to Eddie’s, which was the very last house on the north side of the village, about a ten minute walk. Eddie was gracious and informative. We sat on his porch with Leah and Iain and drank green coconuts. In impeccable English, he told us about Sulu-an, “just a poor village,” and how he had ended up there. He had married a woman from the island and she had wanted to settle there. It was such a lovely place that he agreed. Now, years later, he was the elected captain of the village—it’s essentially a volunteer post for which he only receives an honorarium. New elections are due but the area doesn’t have enough money to fund them, so they have decided to leave everyone in place until 2007. Eddie was a really nice guy and seemed much respected by his constituents. When we walked down there a second time to check out, people would ask us where we were going. “To visit Eddie.” “Oh yes! Eddie! Good, good,” they would say, nodding approvingly.
Sulu-an’s inhabited stretch of beach extends probably two miles, with Eddie’s house the last to the north, and Lorne and Jennifer’s the last to the south. Most people, including Leah’s family, live in the middle half-mile of this area, clustered four rows deep in houses of all shapes and sizes. There are no strict architectural rules here: simple cement block, Spanish hacienda-style with molded arches, shuttered wooden cottages that would look at home on Cape Cod, plywood shacks, traditional coconut or bamboo structures, and even a house covered in maroon 8x8-inch tiles. Roofs are thatch, clay tile, or corrugated metal in reds, blues and grays. The effect is, dare I say, pleasingly picturesque, and the carefully groomed gardens with shaped hedges, blooming orchids, and other colorful flowers make you feel like you’re walking through someone’s idealized image of a village instead of a real one. (Could that someone be me?) Add to this that there is only one motorized vehicle in regular use on the island, which is Lorne’s scooter (and, yes, Lorne, is the only Anglo inhabitant).
The main road is the center of social and commercial activity. People shop at tiny window-stores, neighbors sit on porches and watch passersby, friends meet and chat, kids play games in the street. The main road has a raised strip of cement laid down the middle of it, perhaps six feet wide. It is dusted over with sand that carries innumerable flip-flop prints (called "slippers" here) and the snakelike tracks of bicycles. The other prominent feature of the town is the abundance of what Graeme calls chicken-condos. Some roosters are simply tethered to a stake on the side of the road, but many have these beautifully crafted cages made out of bamboo or sticks. It almost feels like these birds are placed in front of people’s homes as a sign of wealth or strength, and the roosters are treated like royalty. Why? Because every Sunday Sulu-an holds a cockfight.
Parallel to the road, under a large tree with bench-like roots, is a cockfighting ring. We arrived as the second match was just ending. The sturdy wooden barrier to the ring was crowded three bodies deep, mostly men. I stood on tip-toes and was able to glimpse the final throes of the fight. When one bird is on its last legs, the referee picks up both birds, faces them off, and sets them back down to let the winner to finish off the loser. I watched two of these face-offs before the loser’s neck and body went limp in the dust. The crowd dispersed. The men quickly moved from standing around the cockfighting ring, to standing in a ring around the road—and Graeme and I became the new main attraction. We’ve been stared at quite a bit in our travels, but it’s an odd sensation when everyone is gathered in a circle, waiting for entertainment, and you become the half-time show. It was thirty minutes until the next fight; people just stared and stared. I found myself blushing. I felt like I should sing a little ditty or dance a jig. “Get used to it,” Graeme said. “We’re in Asia now.”
The reason it took so long to start the next round was that the cocks have to be well-matched; it’s not like there’s a prepared list of opponents, a roster of roosters, so to speak. There seemed to be a lot of posturing and politicking, hemming and hawing on the part of the owners as the roosters were placed in mini face-offs to see what kind of antagonism might result. Like a Porky’s locker room scene, the cocks were sized up, slung about, hefted, laughed at, and otherwise closely scrutinized in order to assess their vim and vigor. No one wanted to sacrifice his rooster to a bird likely to kick the shit out of it—and the organizers would only make money on a fight that resulted in lots of betting—so the match was considered carefully. And it’s not like the loser can at least take the bird home and eat it—that privilege goes to the winner (though I imagine these birds are as tough in the pot as they are in the ring).
Finally a good match was found, and each owner was given a blade to attach to one of his rooster’s legs. Apparently, roosters have these sort of dew claws that they fight with naturally. The owners attach blades, sharp and shiny, to make the killing bloody and dramatic. When the birds were ready, we all crowded round the ring, adults resting their arms on top of the fence, kids peering through it like prison bars, teenagers perched on the ledges of nearby houses, toddlers held high on dads’ shoulders. The fight began and it was a blur of feathers—black, red, white, and brown. It reminded me of the roadrunner’s blurring legs when he prepared to take off. The roosters pecked and flapped and lashed out with their heel-blades. One bird was clearly a stronger fighter, flapping three feet in the air and slashing his blade to great advantage. Blood splattered. The crowd jeered. The fight took on a rhythm with one dominant dancer. The brown bird flailed. The black and white rooster started going in for the kill. The crowd laughed as the brown cock staggered and fell. Then the referee began the final round of face-offs, but these didn’t last long because the brown bird was weak and rapidly dying. Finally, he lay still in the dust.
Four days later...
As you can see, Sulu-an was quite an experience. There’s so much more to tell…getting Lorne and Jennifer’s boat off the reef after a big blow; passing daily by the grunting gatekeeper Mr. Hog; hiking to the lighthouse and the other side of the island with Leah; the politics of property, gambling, and drinking…the list goes on. But that’s all the time I have now. We’re actually in Tacloban now. Leah and Iain sailed with us and they showed us around this bustling city. This is our first big city in a long long time, so it’s time to hit the streets and the markets and the food stalls, and shop and gawk and ride in tri-cycles (motorcycles with attached rigs for carrying passengers) and whatnot. More later…
-Janna
