Sombrero Island: A small paradise within

06 January 2008: And here we are again, welcoming a new year in an island voyage. Anilao is a small barangay (village) in the municipality of Mabini. It is located in south part of Batangas facing the Maricaban Island. The magnificent Isla Verde can be seen from its east coast while Balayan Bay on west coast. Truly, Batangas is a destination for beach hopping and savoring the tidbit islands in Southern Luzon.

Anilao has been known not only in the Philippines but worldwide as one of the best diving spots in the world. Most of the resorts turned-out like mushroom during 90’s and since then the place has been primarily offering diving packages, lessons, tours, etc. Actually Anilao beach fronts and beach resorts composed by majority of small rocks and not fine or semi-fine sand, but there are still some undisturbed parts in most southern part that could give you a relaxing stay even if you’re not going for a dive, like Eagle Point Resort and Anilao Outrigger Resort.

In our case, since we didn’t chose to dive and we don’t have diving license yet, we decided to charter a boatmen, carry out bay exploring and visit a small island located in southern part of Balayan Bay and west-northern part of Maricaban Island.

The Sombrero Island (named after the baseball cap, since its façade looks like a baseball cap), it is a small island, really small, with white sand shore and pieces of white rocks with crushed corals. The island is un-manned but there is always one man (I forgot his name) staying in his small nipa hut during daytime and collecting fees to the visitors of the island. But, that time we didn’t pay him because he can’t produce any receipt.

Anyway, we swam a lot in the bursting wave, walked along the big rocks on the other side of the island, and explored the amazing view within. On our way back to Anilao, I asked our boatmen to stop for a while in the middle of the bay because I’ll try to jump/dive into the open deep sea water, with bravery and full of eagerness, I dove and I think it was my first time to do that, unfortunately, I forgot to ask my cousins to take video only photograph, anyway, I will do it next time and if chance is there!

How to get here

• It was a smooth 2 ½-hour trip from Manila, passing through South Luzon Expressway (SLEX), Batangas Star Tollway, and through small towns of Sta. Rita, San Pascual and Bauan. It was not a troublesome since the newly renovated SLEX was integrated to Star Tollway and the way to Mabini has a noticeable signboards and directions. Alternatively, by taking a public transport, you may reach Anilao by one bus ride with sign board ‘Batangas City’ from Manila (Buendia-Gil Puyat LRT) bound to Batangas City and one jeepney ride with sign board ‘Mabini-Anilao’ from Batangas City pier bound to Anilao proper.