Cruise ship visits S. Leyte, N. Samar

LEYTE — The Caledonian Sky, an all-suite, 100-guest cruise ship of the famed US-based Zegrahm Expeditions, dropped anchor off three islands in Eastern Visayas over the Holy Week.

The luxury ship's first stop was Pintuyan Island in Southern Leyte where the guests had refreshments, lazed in the sun and cooled themselves at the Dakdak Beach Resort, according to Patrick Steven Buena of the Department of Tourism-8.

Caledonian Sky then sailed to Magallanes in Limasawa Island, also in Southern Leyte, the site of the first Mass of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan.

Karina Rosa Tiopes, DOT- 8 director, said it was the second time for the cruise liner to visit Limasawa, the first of which was early last year.

On Good Friday, the ship's final stop in the region was Capul Island in Northern Samar, which was first evangelized by the Spaniards in 1596.

The island's name "Capul" comes from the word "Acapulco," which has a centuries-old lighthouse, known as balwarte or parola, built by the Spaniards in the 1800s and guided galleons plying the Acapulco-Manila trade route..

It also has a 400-year old stone church, one of the last remaining of its kind in the country, where the locals would hold the "Siete Palabras" in drama form. The stone church was declared a heritage church by the National Heritage Commission a few years ago.

Capul Mayor Isidro Bandal said the foreign tourists from the cruise ship stayed for one day in the island-town to visit historical places here. He said it was the second time the island was visited by a cruise ship.

Bandal said Capul is now a tourist attraction, and the National Historical Commission had declared the town's 396-year-old stone church as a national heritage site.

The church, known as St. Ignatius de Loyola Church, is surrounded by stone walls and served also as a fortress and a refuge of the Capuleños during the times of the Moro raids. It was constructed in 1606 but was razed to ashes in 1615.

In the same year, the church, as it is now, was re-constructed and since then little has been touched of the old structure.

Before the island was renamed Capul, it was named Abak, in honor of deposed King Abak of Java, Indonesia who landed and settled on the island. —