From the Archives: Bagacay Point Lighthouse in Liloan

The sun has always been hiding during early mornings these past weekends. There have been occasional rain showers too. These prevented me from venturing out early to do my wanderings.

For the past weeks, I have been yearning for a fine early morning weather so that I could go out and take additional photos for my project on Cebu and Bohol lighthouses. Next in my list is the Bagacay Point lighthouse in Liloan, Cebu. Liloan is a municipality situated 11 km northeast of Cebu City.

The Bagacay Lighthouse was built in 1904 by the order of the American Governor General Howard Taft. The lighthouse is a declared national historical landmark.

Last Saturday, I went to Punta Bagacay, Liloan late in the afternoon to take some low light shots of the lighthouse. Since the sky is always clear during the afternoons, low light shots would be fine. The sky was also clear when I checked for stars at around 11PM that night. I thought that a fine weather awaits the next day. I woke up early hoping to take early morning pictures. To my dismay, it was already raining.

With nothing else to do, I reviewed my stock photos. And then I saw my old shots of the lighthouse taken some time in 2005 and 2006. They actually belonged to some rolls of films that survived the termite attack in my boarding house early last year. And so, I had them digitized for posterity.

I remembered that during our first trip to the lighthouse, there were three of us who had still cameras, and one of us had a video camera. He has studied film-making and he made a short movie of our photo shoot. The video was actually very good. However, it did not make its way to Youtube. :)

On the first trip, we arrived very early and we were able to observed the sunrise at Bagacay Point.



After several minutes, we made a tour of the entire area. The operational lighthouse is actually situated in an elevated plain. 



In the lower plain adjoining the coastline, the ruins of the older lighthouse thought to be operational from 1874 to 1908 can be seen. I was actually the first one to reach the old lighthouse. During that time (some pounds ago), I had the courage to do a self-portrait, with both lighthouses in the background.



When the sun was already high, we took a break under a black plum tree and we had a group picture. (From R-L, starting up: Al Caballes, Kim Cortes, Charlou Famorcan and Kim's little sister. Standing, R-L: Orven Capuras, the film-maker, and this author.)



In 2006, I have revisited the lighthouse alone and unfortunately it was an overcast day. I tried to explore other perspectives for the lighthouse. I think that the overcast sky helped fit the description of lighthouses as lonely sentinels of the sea.



Bagacay Point has been undergoing some changes in the past years. I had my fears when I decided to take some low light shots because the lighthouse was quite secluded despite the presence of security guards in the area. There is currently a high-end village being constructed around the lighthouse. Due to this, it has become more accessible. There is a new access road that leads straight from the adjoining residential area of Bagacay to the lighthouse. I actually took my time last Saturday, wandering in the fields with cows still grazing in the dark, until 7PM.

I will share the recent images soon...