Top 5 Things to Do at Fortune Island
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Tour the whole island.
Fortune Island is a resort island located about 14 kilometers off the coast of Nasugbu, Batangas. It is long owned by Jose Antionio Leviste, a former governor of the province of Batangas. He decided to open the Fortune Island Resort Club in 1995, imitating a Greek acropolis.
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Its landscape forms a 100-feet cliff westside and a sand dune on its eastside, facing Nasugbu shoreline. There are several rest houses along the beach and a place where you can stay overnight.
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Conduct a photoshoot.
Want to know how is it like to be Adonis and Athena? There are some Grecian pillars and statues on the edge of the island overlooking the sea. You can pose beside these and have your best shot taken. Feeling like a pirate? There’s also a mock-up of a Spanish galleon named San Diego at the far end of the beach. You can pretend you’re a ship captain with this and the sea as your backdrop.
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Visit the museum.
French marine explorers led by Franck Goddio first excavated the sunken merchant galleon San Diego with its treasure trove in 1992. The San Diego sank in Dec. 14, 1600 after a battle between Spanish forces led by Antonio de Morga and Dutch naval forces led by Olivier van Noort off the waters of Nasugbu Bay. The ship's discovery was hailed worldwide as one of the greatest archaelogical finds of the past century. A trading ship hastily converted into a war ship, the San Diego's astounding number (over 34,000) of artifacts is a veritable showcase of the known world at the time, as seen in its trove of Chinese porcelain, Celadonware, Japanese katanas, Spanish casques, Portuguese cannon and Mexican coin. With the discovery of the shipwreck, historians refuted the claims made by Antonio de Morga in Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas where he has apparently glossed over his failures in the tragic event. To commemorate the discovery, former Batangas Gov. Antonio Leviste and his wife, Sen. Loren Legarda opened the MV San Diego warship museum in Fortune Island, some 14 km. from Nasugbu's Wawa Pier.
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Tell bonfire stories.
Because the island is near the said shipwrecks, there have been stories that the ghosts or souls of the people who died in the tragedy haunt this island. On top of that, some structures and cottages that have fallen into disuse and neglect add to the “ghost town feel” of the area.
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A lot of tourists don’t stay there overnight because of these horror tales. But, for the adventure and thrill seekers, these paranormal beings are considered additional charms of the island.Photo by jcmedina of flickr.com
Take a dip or dive in the water.
Most visited dive spot are the “blue holes” located on the northern most tip of the island, named as such because of the two 5-foot diameter holes on top of the 45 feet deep reef which leads down to an open cavern 80 feet deep.
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Viewed from below, the holes look like portholes of an aquarium.
Photo by jcmedina of flickr.com
Dramatic is the sun’s ray shining down through the holes like subdued spotlights illuminating the cavern.
Photo by jcmedina of flickr.com