As we approach Hilutangan Channel, we are much interested in some of the fishing boats and other small craft which are all about. One of the first sighted is nothing more than a small raft with a sort of wooden tripod built on one end upon which branches of trees have been placed, apparently haphazardly. Usually these crude rafts have only a single passenger, who appears to be steering them. Our impression is that they are simply blown across the channel by the sail effect of the branches and twigs on the tripod [all were going east]. Possibly this is merely an easy way to get logs from one side of the channel across to the other.
A number of other types of craft, many of them old and decrepit, are around also. As we approach Hilutangan Channel, the number of boats decreases. Most of them are concentrated in the approaches to Cebu, before we get there.
0800 Entering Hilutangan Channel. Speed, 4 knots, at periscope depth. Tide and current tables indicate that we should receive a pretty strong set to the northward, in the direction we want to go. This indeed proves to be the case, since our speed over the ground is about 3 knots faster than our speed through the water.
As we enter the Channel, we are much interested in the picture presented by our echo-ranging sonar. The sonar-repeater in the conning tower gives an actual picture of the shape of the Channel. The depth of water is in many places greater than a hundred fathoms and the shore is steep-to. As a result, the area of shallow water near the shore is very clearly outlined on the face of our conning tower repeater. With this kind of gear we could easily go deep and proceed at high speed. Not knowing, however, exactly what we will find at the other end, we shall go through at periscope depth; perhaps on the return trip we can transit the Channel at deep depth.
During the passage through Hilutangan Channel, numerous small boat contacts are made. In one case a very decrepit boat with an outrigger on both sides and a large canvas awning, propelled by an ancient one-lung engine, came across our bow, distance a few hundred yards. It looks like a ferry, probably plying back and forth between Mactan and one of the islands on the eastern side of Hilutangan Channel. Numerous passengers can be seen, and none give the slightest evidence of seeing us. After all, who would expect a periscope here?
One of the passengers is a rather attractive Filipino woman dressed in a faded pink print dress of some sort and holding, I thought quickly, a small child on her lap. Her face is placid and emotionless. She is looking in our general direction but thinking of something else. To her left stands the steersman of this strange craft, paying attention to his business. Most of the other passengers are faced ahead or toward Mactan, on the other side of the ferry.
From here on, as we proceed up Hilutangan Channel there are increasing numbers of boats, most of them pleasure craft. In the distance, in the Camotes Sea far beyond Magellan Bay, more fishing boats may be seen. The pleasure boats, outrigger canoe types with a large and very colorful sail, I would judge to be anywhere from 12 to 20 feet long, narow of hull and mostly white or gray in color. They have a single mast with a cross arm on which a triangular-shaped sail is mounted with the point at the bottom. There are usually one or two occupants lolling around comfortably, perhaps fishing, although few fish poles or lines are in evidence. Most likely they are out enjoying themselves. Some sun helmets are in evidence on both men and women. The sails are most colorful, being decorated with half-circles, half-moons, triangles, diagonals, and so forth. None of the occupants appear to take the slightest notice of us, although at times our curiosity and the desire to get a good photograph cause us to leave the periscope up longer than I should have liked.
To ensure that all craft are avoided by a safe distance, our periscope observations are frequent and carefully timed, so as not to be too long.
Upon one occasion as I raised the periscope [invariably first looking ahead for fear of striking a log or a small boat], I caught a glimpse of a canoe drifting swiftly by. It had two occupants; a small and elderly woman with her back to us, and at the other end of the boat, facing me as I looked at him with my solitary eye, a rather portly gentleman, bare to the waist and heavily tanned, even for a Filipino. As I looked, he lifted his hand and waved at me in a manner almost as if he were saying to his companion, “Now as I was saying, that could almost be a periscope. It looks just like that, and it sticks up out of the water just like that thing over there.”—at which point I quickly lowered it.
The portly gentleman did not appear particularly disturbed at our periscope and in fact probably did not recognize what it was, unless, indeed, he is a retired US Navy Steward.
1057 With the help of a strong current, we have made a remarkably fast passage through Hilutangan Channel.
1100 We are past the north end of Mactan Island and enter Magellan Bay. This Bay also has very deep water extending well inside the points of land which form its two extremities, though it is very shallow close inshore. [Magellan was killed here fighting in water up to his knees.]
Not having our fathometer, we approach cautiously. But our sonar picture shows a bottom contour that corresponds closely to the chart, and we have complete confidence in it by this time. Triton is, however, a pretty big ship to take into this tiny Bay, and our navigation is rapid. There are, fortunately, several clearly defined landmarks as well as a couple of lighthouses upon which to take bearings. In the distance, over the end of Mactan Island, can be seen the buildings of Cebu marching up into the hillside, with the dome of the Provincial Capitol etched white against the verdant hillside. Near the waterfront several large modern structures can be described; one in particular, which would not be out of place in any modern setting, is three to five stories high and approximately three hundred feet long.
Our foray into Magellan Bay is complicated somewhat by the discovery of three tall tree trunks sticking out of the water. Apparently they are ballasted to float vertically and are anchored to some sort of bottom structures, since they have no supporting wires of any kind. Maybe they delimit fishing areas. At all events, we carefully avoid them and the rock piles and anchor cabling they may mark.
1120 We have been carefully, without much luck, searching the south shores of the Bay to determine whether the Magellan monument can be seen. About this time, as I scrutinize the shore, it finally comes into full view. Without any doubt whatever, I announce to the conning tower party, “There it is!” The water is too shallow for us to approach close enough to get a really good photograph, but we take movies of what we can see of it from as many angles as it is possible to get them. It can be seen clearly from only one bearing, probably straight front, where trees and foliage have been cut away.
The monument is apparently made of masonry, probably recently whitewashed; it gleams white in the sun. There are dark objects in its center which might be one or more bronze tablets or possibly openings into the interior. It is a rectangular pedestal with long dimension vertical, straight sides and a slightly curved top, standing on a set of steps or a base. The impression is that it may at one time have supported a statue or been intended to, but what we see consists, in that case, only of the statue base.
1125 Sighted aircraft resembling a twin-engine DC-3 making a landing approach near the city.
There are numerous small boats in Magellan Bay, and we would not be surprised to find they are contestants in a sailboat race. Most of them are brightly colored pleasure craft.
One of these in particular intrigued me. Occupied by a single relaxed-looking gentleman, dressed in gay clothes and a broad hat, the boat was about fifteen feet long, painted white, with a white mast and white outrigger. The sail was red, with a large blue half-moon design on it, and like all sails of this type was a simple triangle mounted on a single crossed yard near the top of the mast, its pointed foot secured to a single cleat or snap ring at its base. Two “braces”—as Stephen Decatur would have called them—led from the yard-arm ends to the rear or cockpit of the boat, where its comfortably slouched owner handled them with one hand while he operated a rudder with the other.