home of the winds

The strong winds and seas that meet at the northernmost point of the Philippines have long capsized and commanded shipmen and adventurers; despite this, the IVATAN have made a rock-solid heritage out of adapting to their challenging environment.

- MARGA MAGALONG

EVEN BEFORE IT BECAME THE ROMANTIC BACKDROP TO THE HIT ’90S FILIPINO ROMANCE FILM HIHINTAYIN KITA SA LANGIT and before it became the much regarded model of sustainable tourism it is today, Batanes has always been a long-held favorite among travelers of a certain, swashbuckling bend. Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, for example, memorializes Batanes in the realm of modern epics, calling the province “Bashee Isles,” a name used among whalers, shippers, and pirates who visited the islands until its establishment as a Spanish colonial state in 1783. “There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath,” describes Ishmael, the novel’s narrator, as the ship sailed through the channel.

To this day, non-natives of Batanes still find themselves caught in the same spell experienced by centuries of seafarers and shipmen tamed yet captivated by the island’s notably intense winds and seas. But in the 4,000 years of Ivatan civilization, the cultural community indigenous to the island, the people and the land have adapted to every change and every storm the Ivatan way.

Batanes consists of several small islands, with Batan, Sabtang, and Itbayat being the three islands inhabited. Summing up to an estimated area of 20,928 hectares of land, the smallest province in the Philippines is quite literally the pagtitipon of the Pacific Ocean, the West Philippine Sea, and the Bashi and Balintang Channels. The islands are aptly known as “Home of the Winds,” with their wavecut cliffs, arching outcrop formations, and secluded white sand beaches, visitors bare witness to the landscapes made possible by its strong winds and currents.