It’s been a while since I last did something that would rank as an adventure, so when I first heard about a “mystical” island with a Spanish era lighthouse on it, wanderlust started to gnaw at my sanity until I just had to give in. Maybe it’s the stress and / or boredom of sitting in an office all day but traveling out of town to a place totally unfamiliar or alien from my daily fare is something that I always look forward to. The more exotic and more challenging the trip, the better satisfied I am.

I rounded up the usual posse and invited anyone and everyone who would hear me out. Planning started early February with high speed internet connection giving instant access to way points, maps, pictures, and blog entries about our intended destination. I also got input from friends who have been there and a plan soon evolved and quickly concretized.

Capones is the name of an island that sits a few kilometers of the coast of Zambales. The island is approximately two kilometers in length and there is a century old light house on its eastern tip that was built during the Spanish era. The light house has been upgraded and is still operational to this day. The island is uninhabited except for occasional day trip visitors and campers like our selves who visit the island’s beaches.

We left Manila at Midnight and after a long and uneventful couple of hours spent on a bus, we arrived in an un-holy hour on the beach of Pundaquit. There we waited for day break to get a boat to Capones Island. At daybreak after a quick breakfast and last minute shopping spree for provisions and supplies we were off.

I would love to write a glowing story of how much fun we had on the island … But it seems like we chose the hottest day of the year so we ended up huddled under the shade most of the day. I think that was the time when some kids died due to heat stroke at the Palarong Pambansa, it was that freaking hot. Good thing Greg and Jwyn brought a cooler filled with ice and a case of beer. That was our salvation that day.

The afternoon shade provided a welcome relief from the sun’s scorching heat but left us little time to explore the rest of the island. A little time to swim and prepare dinner was all that we could do with the remaining light. I wanted to go to the light house, that was the very reason I came to that island, but alas that would have to wait till the next day.

Dawn came Sunday, our second day on the island, my last chance to reach the light house. The moment I stepped out of my tent I was filled with urgency and desire to start off for the light house. I asked everyone but in the end could only get Xave and Vince to go with me. Walking was out of the question so we would have to swim, albeit with mask, snorkel, fins. 

It was a long swim to the light house. We had to swim approximately 3 kilometers back and forth. The island was surrounded by huge boulders and corals rich with marine life. I’d rank Capones Island as one of the best places to skin dive since a lot of the corals are really shallow and you can easily see a lot marine life without having to dive down deep. The mix of rocks, corals, and sea grass was simply amazing. There was a profusion of colors and a host of different kinds of fish and other kinds of marine life that was simply a joy to see and maybe even chase around (oohh, I’m not supposed to do that to the poor fishies). The highlight of the long swim was when we saw a sea turtle swim by as we were swimming towards the other end of the island. That already made my day…

I wouldn’t recommend to anybody to try and swim to the light house, at least not directly from the western beach all the way to the eastern tip. At one point I realized that we were swimming in open sea probably 1 km away from the shore because we opted for a straight line instead of hugging the shoreline of the island. The corals below started sloping deeper and deeper until all we could see was the deep blue abyss. Getting cramps at that point would have been quite a problem.

We finally reached, what from the photo seemed like a white sand beach, but we instead found a lot of white rocks. It was also quite peculiar because of the large number of slippers, shoes, and other kinds of footwear that littered that rock filled shore. It seemed like all the slippers had been deposited there from the many beaches of Zamables and Bataan. Or maybe they were left by the many visitors to the light house before proceeding up the island (absurd), or maybe some alien collector of footwear deposited their loot on that particular beach (crazy).

We walked up past an old broken fence, up concrete steps, and past what seemed like brick ditches till we found an open, grass filled, hill top with goats grazing. We had an unobstructed view of the vast South China Sea. A short distance away was the light house. Its lower part was hidden by trees with only the top showing. A path led up to a gated compound of old run down brick buildings that housed the light house. There was a well in the middle of the compound and a staircase that led up to a building. The place was relatively clean, as if someone had recently cleaned up. It was quiet and we were the only people there. The silence was sort of eerie and unsettling. The well even reminded me of that Japanese film The Ring and the thought of a long haired girl wearing white would creep out any minute crossed my mind. I was later told by the tricycle driver that when he was younger, they would often visit the light house but always in large groups because it supposed to be haunted and a lot of weird and scary would often happen there.

But we really didn’t experience anything weird, mystical, or out of the ordinary… well except maybe hearing voices and sounds that seemed like a lot of people having fun. We heard the voices and noise at our campsite and we wondered if it was coming from the other side of the huge rock or hill or maybe it was the echo of sound made by the people from the beach. We couldn’t figure it out and couldn’t find the source, but it seemed like a perfectly logical and scientific explanation was there, we just couldn’t find it…

We explored and roamed the place and we took lots of pictures. I was actually expecting to meet other people there, maybe locals or other visitors. It seemed like the most logical thing to want to visit the light house which that island was known for. But there was no one there. We then tried to find a footpath or trail back to our camp site on the other end of the island because Xave didn’t want to swim back because he got stung by jelly fish and was in pain, but to no avail, no trail. We had to swim back at least to the middle of the island. We swam back to the middle of the island crossed over to the northern side and from there we walked on the beach back to our campsite. 

                                                                                                   Photo by Xavier Ignacio

Back at our camp, everybody had already packed and was ready to go, eagerly awaiting our boat aptly named “Godspeed” to take us out of that heatstroke inducing island. After a quick breakfast and the tedious process of packing up my stuff we said farewell to the island and headed back to Pundaquit.

Would I go back to Capones? Hell yes! The trick is to move around depending on the time of day and pick a good campsite and definitely go skin diving at the right places. Also, the boat men had told us about other places to visit in the area like Anawangin which he described as “paradise” and suggested we visit the place soon. Anawangin is a place covered by evergreen trees providing shade, a long stretch of beautiful sandy beach, a fresh water river cutting across the area, and even wild tamaraws in the area. There you have it… another place to visit and a reason to return.

                                                Photo by Xavier Ignacio

How to go to Capones… You can take the Victory liner bus from Caloocan heading either to Iba or Sta. Cruz, Zambales. Get off at San Antonio and take a tricycle to Pundaquit. From Pundakit you can rent a banca to take you to the island. Before you go, be sure to check the weather report for the area and plan accordingly.