by Isabella Angan

            There was comfort in the sea being as limitless as the sky above. When there’s too much to handle, it helps to float and remember how big the world is compared to my problems. Instead of wasting time on worrying about petty things, the sea literally immersed me in its own mysteries and wonders. The beach was my comfort zone, where my only problem was staying under the sun too much, only to wake up the next day with salty hair and burned skin. Honda Bay in Palawan has a way of making me forget what reality feels like. Since Palawan is isolated from the other islands, their ocean feels a little more limitless than usual. The next province is a thousand of miles away, so I felt like I could float a little longer and whole lot lighter.

  In the two islands we visited on the Honda Bay, we were able to see and feed colourful schools of fish. A few months ago, I was one of the many Filipinos that signed the petition to stop private developers from building a Nickelodeon park and resort featuring underwater attractions in the Palawan oceans. After my Palawan trip, I was even prouder that I did that then. Palawan deserved more than to be commercialized. As home to sea creatures that the rest of the world can only dream of having, it only makes sense for us to protect all the creatures living in our oceans. Feeding fish can be such a humbling experience, because it reminds us that we don’t have ownership, but a responsibility over these oceans.

Since we rode on a bangka from one island to another, I noticed the ocean was brackish in color. The sun shined, and the waves

glistened, yet I still couldn’t see what swam underneath. Only when I snorkelled, I saw all the fish and corals that hid under the blanket of ocean. Then I realized that you have to dive in things you don’t understand to understand. I dived in the ocean to understand its limit only to realize that the ocean is limitless, because we can never measure how much we know about the ocean. The ocean is so vast and mysterious that even now it is celebrated when we find a new underwater specimen. I dived in the ocean to understand why it’s worth protecting only to find fishes living in corals. In these oceans, there are living, breathing, beautiful creatures that deserve more than to be looked at, but also to be taken care of.